‘I have over 100 hats,” says Linda Perry, who is today wearing a fetching western number with a bandana skimming her cheek tattoos in the style of Captain Jack Sparrow. “I don’t really like hair. I had dreads for a long time, then a mohawk. Now I’m just like, ‘Fuck it. I’m not even gonna attempt to have a hairstyle. This is my hairstyle.’”
But the hats on her head are not the only ones Perry wears. As well as being the writer and producer behind some of the most definitive pop songs of the 2000s – having penned tracks for the likes of Christina Aguilera, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Courtney Love, Alicia Keys and Adele – she is also an artist manager, label head, film soundtracker and queer icon. For a time during the new millennium, it was Perry who singers turned to when they wanted a spiky musical makeover. Many of her early forays into hit-making leaned into rebellious rabble-rousing, with rising stars spouting such pouty lines as “kissing my ass” and “stupid ho”. Most memorable were Pink’s Get the Party Started, Stefani’s solo comeback What You Waiting For? and Love’s Mono.
