Fifteen years after Animal and Cannibal, Kesha is finally feeling glittery again. Now that her long legal battle with producer Dr. Luke is over, she’s ready to reembrace her career breakthrough, which she just celebrated with Animal + Cannibal 15th Anniversary, a deluxe reissue with bonus tracks. In a recent episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, she took an in-depth look back at that time. To hear the whole episode, go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above. A condensed version of that conversation follows.
Good to see you. You’ve been well?
I’ve been insane. But in the best of ways. I was thinking about this yesterday — for 10 years it was really not fun at all. It was so heavy. I had the life sucked out of me. And then when I got this insane call that I was gonna be free in three months’ time, it was like being in a movie. It was such an insane phone call to get. And from that moment onward, I’ve just been on 11. So it’s crazy, but I’m good and I feel very alive.
So the call was telling you that you were free of your old record contract. But unpack “on 11” for me.
Literally the second I got that call, I looked around and was like, “Anything that does not make me feel free has to go.” So I called the guy I was dating and very lovingly was like, this is not it [laughs]. I went to the woods, I started meditating heavily. It’s been this obsession for me to try to see what makes me feel free and what doesn’t, including the stuff in my house. I don’t wanna be beholden to a genre of music. Being blond to be a pop star — it was frying my hair. That doesn’t make me feel free. I’m gonna have fucking roots, goddammit. Anything that I feel beholden to, even subconsciously that I’m maybe not even aware of, I’ve started really trying to analyze what feels good and what doesn’t.
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So that sounds intense and transformative.
Totally, and a little insane. I’ve been writing so many songs. I feel like I’m making up for a lot of lost time. I feel like I wanna heal as quickly as possible. It’s impossible to go through what I went through and just be like, “That didn’t affect me at all, I’m totally unscathed and completely fine.” So I’m trying to really heal. And I’m doing that in front of the whole world. I’ve kind of done everything in my life in front of the whole world. So I know it’s probably messy at times and there’s a lot of emotions, but I hope that people can just see that I’m trying to be an example. ‘Cause I know I’m not the only person out there that’s gone through something hard.
When you talk about stylistically liberating yourself, I feel like you’ve already done that to an extent.
Well, stylistically, musically — me too.
So what does it mean to do that further?
I made an album with Rick Rubin that was so spiritual and meaningful. At the time, it was so different for me, and I felt like, “Are people gonna like this?” I don’t think certain people were happy I made that record. It was not a pop-banger record. So there was this people-pleasing of like, “Oh, is that all right if I’m doing this?” I can’t wait to just explore. The people-pleasing piece has been something I’ve really been looking at with my freedom — how that has affected my life and my music. I really want to get completely limitless in terms of the sonics, like, what is possible sonically.… Since I was young, it was like, “This is how long a song should be.… Make the bridge iconic and make sure people like it.” And now, I’m kind of like, “Make sure I like it.” What if I make sure people hate it? I don’t know. I just wanna see what is possible.… I might just continue making pop songs ’cause I love pop songs, but I just wanna feel so fucking free.
That’s a great place to be. And it’s an interesting moment to be looking back at the beginning.
I’m really excited to talk about the beginning of all of this, and I didn’t [used to] feel that way. I felt really torn about how to interact with the first couple of albums I put out for a really long time. It was just a really confusing thing to think back about because it was publicly so big. It was my dreams coming true. I’m so grateful. And it was also extremely difficult personally, and very toxic. Some of the nihilism, which I was kind of feeling today, which is why I put glitter on — the nihilism I think came from also not being treated very kindly.
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When you’re kind of a punk rocker … I found all my punk friends, we would get fucked up and get tattoos and put crazy makeup on and wear studded jackets. But we were all super sensitive, sweet misfit people that just wanted a place to belong and feel loved and safe, and a place to be ourselves. I think a lot of that shithead, brat energy was actually just like, “If you don’t love me, fuck you. So I’m gonna make myself look crazier and be extra intense about it.” But I think that was a lot of feeling of just not belonging and not feeling very loved and not feeling very cared for. And that’s why I love my Animals. ‘Cause those are my fucking people. My Animals, they get me, they see me, I get them, I see them. They’re my people.
What do you remember about the writing and recording of “Tik Tok” that you can share?
I remember that I was very happy to make music with Benny Blanco. We were both little shitheads. I really enjoyed working with Benny, and we would have a really good time. It was really interesting how the stupider the lyrics got and just the more playful and the less seriously I took it and the less I would think about it — the more it was just, like, you don’t use your brain at all. Like zero. The craziest experience was I kept being like, “It’s just too stupid.” But then I would listen back and be like, “Huh, no, it’s really fun.” So it kind of got me into a bit of a pickle because the biggest song and the first song is what made everyone think that I didn’t use my brain. But for that song, it really served the purpose of trying to make people have a really good time. It really worked.
It fits into the rock & roll tradition, even though it’s pop music, of a really smart person making deliberately dumb writing, deliberately dumb lyrics. There’s a long tradition of that.
Totally. I had to really separate myself from what people thought about me and how I respect myself, because they started becoming intertwined and I started being like, “Am I just really stupid?” And so that had to stop, because I still get “Do you brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack?” Do you know how old that song is? At this point, I don’t care. Bring it on. But there was a period of time where I was like, “Maybe they think I’m a functioning alcoholic that literally brushes my teeth with hard alcohol.” But, like, did you guys really think that?
Did you write those lyrics?
Yeah. But I was having a fun time. I was being a crazy little bitch, like, every day. But you guys thought I did it every day. That’s not great.
It is, for the historical record, something that you have done at least a couple of times in your life.
OK, so one time I did wake up in a bathtub in Vegas. And [a bottle of Jack was] all there was. And I was, like, it’s probably better than nothing. And then that’s where the lyric came from. So, fine. Maybe I deserve it. I see your point. Touché [laughs].
I mean, that’s also a thing, right? A song encapsulates a millisecond in a life. But then if it becomes iconic, then part of you is always gonna be crystallized in that little moment.
I’m so grateful for that silly fucking little song. ‘Cause think of how much dopamine — I’m the dopamine doula to the drunk people on the dance floor. Let that sink in.
I think you said you rerecorded the lyric about “feeling like P. Diddy,” right?
I am not allowed to release it yet. We’re counting down the days. But at my shows, just so everybody knows, the lyrics have officially changed to “Wake up in the morning like, ‘Fuck P. Diddy.’” And that stands for all that I can’t say.
You once told me that the persona on that early music was your actual personality multiplied by six or by 10 or something. Do you remember the earliest formation of that persona, or which songs or which moments you were like, “OK, this is the thing for persona”?
I was like, “I can sing so beautifully. I’m singing my heart out on this other song.” People are like, “No, I like it when you are white-girl rapping.” And I was like, “I don’t know necessarily even how I feel about doing it, but if it’s making you happy” — it was a lot of kind of like, “I really like to make people happy. I love making people dance. I love making people happy for three and a half minutes.” And that’s just what people liked to listen to. I’ve actually kind of wanted to study the psychology behind this because it’s really interesting that a lot of times the songs I spend the least amount of time on and take the least seriously end up being the ones people like the most.
From the outside, it did seem like you were having fun.
I was having a really good time when I was with my friends, when I was with my fans, and making some of those songs. Recently, I’ve had to kind of go back and reclaim all of those songs, even though I had almost, like, a resentment with the energy of some of them. I went back and really realized that was just me. I love that I was so playful, and I love that I just didn’t give a fuck. And I love that I was so naive about having fun in front of the whole world. I fucking love that. What a fearless bad bitch. I have so much love for her. She had no idea how painful that was gonna be, to be so imperfect in front of the whole world. But what a badass motherfucker. I’m so proud of myself.
With Cannibal, it’s amazing it’s so good because it was recorded in, like, two weeks, right?
You don’t even know! That was in the era of pop stars where they loved to compare inches of our body to each other and tear you to shit and follow you — it was the craziest era. And I remember being on tour, and I never thought I was exceptionally hot, but I didn’t loathe myself in the way that a bad picture could make you. Especially a bad picture on the cover of a magazine.
So then I’m on tour being silly and having fun and I have a cowbell and we’re having a good time, everything’s cool. And then that started happening. I was like, “Whoa. I should hate myself. I think I need to hate myself because, whoa.” And then I was like, “I think I need to break my leg. I think I need to break my leg to stop touring for a minute.” ‘Cause it was just so crazy and I didn’t know how to handle it. And I remember turning to my mom — I wanted the tour to stop, and I was like, “Mom, you might have to break my leg.” And she was like, “No, you just need to sleep.” And I was like, “All right.” And she was right. So she didn’t break my leg, but I only had two weeks to write and record my second album.
So you do consider it your second album, not an EP or anything?
I do, yeah. If we wanna go contractually in the world of contracts and people that weren’t telling me things because it didn’t serve things legally in the universe — whatever it was. It was most definitely my second fucking album.
The one production thing that I think got under your skin is the Auto-Tune stuff. Which made you worried that people would think you couldn’t sing.
Yes. Which is similar to the stupid thing, right? Like we talked about feeling stupid because my first song was so stupid. I don’t mind being stupid as fuck for a whole night, sometimes a whole weekend. Happy to get stupid. And happy to use Auto-Tune. I think it was more the lack of control I had with [creating] a more holistic view of who I was and fearing becoming a caricature of one small aspect of myself that I actually really enjoy. And I love her, and she’s the most fun. But that’s not all of who I am. And I kind of pride myself in being smart and being able to sing. Those are two things I pride myself in in my life.
And for the whole world to think I couldn’t sing and I was stupid — that was hard for me. And I think maybe I shouldn’t have given as much of a fuck as I did, but it’s the whole world. And it’s my whole life. And so that was hard for me, and I just had to let time go on and let my integrity and my choices and my creativity speak for itself. But it did take a while for me to finally feel like people are starting to see me holistically. But, you know, it is what it is.
Also there were really hard moments in this period of time. And then there were the most fun, the most iconic, the most hilarious. I had a food fight backstage at Rock in Rio and I hit, I think, one of the band members from Guns N’ Roses in the eye with a piece of broccoli.
Which one?
I don’t remember. ‘Cause I was throwing it at my friend and she ducked and then it hit him in the face. I think I just scooted. I have “fun” tattooed on my foot from my birthday party ’cause I was having so much fun. I had a lot of fun. And I think that’s part of why it makes me emotional talking about these songs — because there was so much magic and naive, youthful hope. And opportunity and excitement. And, holy shit, who gets to experience that in their life? I’m so lucky. And then there were, sprinkled in, really difficult moments and situations that I really couldn’t talk about.
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And so it’s very polarizing emotionally to know how to look at a period of time when it’s two very drastically different emotions. But I think the thing about life is both things can be felt in that time, and I felt both of those emotions, and I still can look back at this period of time and be extremely grateful ’cause it made me who I am.
Any closing thoughts?
I’m just really grateful. I’m really grateful at a really insane time. And I’m grateful for everybody who’s been with me ever since. And I feel like we just got to the really good part, so stay tuned.
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