She’s as punk as anyone at heart. She went through all the trials and tribulations before she became a star. Katy was not an overnight success.
So I invited Katy to come play it. It was the first time she had played with the band and it was a trainwreck.
I was standing there talking to a few people and I thought, “Uh-oh, I hope this works.” Then she came out on the road and she worked so hard out there to get her show down. Her label released “Kissed a Girl” right around the end of May, when the tour was going out. It went on the radio, and she had to do a lot of work between concerts.
She did radio shows and TV in the morning. But she’d always be there in time for the show. And I would always put her in unique, hard spots. Bring Me the Horizon was on one of the smaller stages, too. So I’d book Bring Me the Horizon and then Katy Perry or vice versa.
As the summer built and the radio picked her up more, she got more attention and she became one of the favorite artists of the bands. Yet at the end of the summer when we did our annual awards presentations,
Katy Perry was voted “Laziest Artist on the Tour.” And
I asked people, “Why is Katy getting called lazy?” And they said, “Well, we never see her at any of the parties or the barbecues.”
So when we were in New York City there were 2,000 at the barbecue, and I went up to Katy’s bus and I said, “You gotta come out tonight.” So she came out, grabbed a bottle of Patron, and she pretty much housed it in about 10 minutes. Everyone loved it. She pretty much won all this punk-rock credibility right there on the spot by showing up and chugging the tequila. The next day her road manager came up to me and said, “You are going to have to deal with her this morning!” Apparently she was up all night throwing up and she had a blazing hangover.
But man, to this date
I love Katy Perry, and I just wish she’d come back out on the road with us again.
a LEGEND