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"In case you didn&amp;#x27;t know, some of your favorite pop songs by your favorite stars are written by behind-the-scenes titans. These songs are everywhere&amp;amp;#8212;yet, in most cases, the authors remain somewhat unveiled. Meet Bonnie McKee, a true-blue California girl who has written for the likes of national treasure Britney Jean Spears, pop&amp;#x27;s go-to rock star Ke$ha, and many more. Bonnie&amp;#x27;s most recent cowriting credits include Katy Perry&amp;#x27;s summer smash &amp;quot;Roar.&amp;quot; (You know that one, right?) Oh, and she wrote &amp;quot;California Gurls.&amp;quot; No big deal or anything, but she and KP pretty much grew up together. Now Bonnie is ready for her close-up with this summer&amp;#x27;s release of the no-less-addictive, all-killer &amp;quot;American Girls&amp;quot; and with &amp;quot;Sleepwalker,&amp;quot; an ode to Michael Jackson&amp;#x27;s unforgettable Halloween classic &amp;quot;Thriller.&amp;quot; The mega-talented artist chats with Glamour about the very first pop song she ever wrote, how she broke into the biz (the story is absolutely heartwarming), and, of course, her pop-culture obsessions. Just wait: Bonnie McKee, like the titans she writes for, will soon be everywhere too. Tune in! GLAMOUR: You&amp;#x27;ve written some of my favorite pop songs of all time. How did you develop your ear for catchy melodies and addictive hooks? How did you decide that pop music would be your primary medium? Bonnie McKee: It&amp;#x27;s funny: I grew up classically trained. I was in the Seattle Girls Choir, and we traveled all over the world. I remember I tried out for a solo and I sang [sings *lovely* sample of her natural voice]. The choir director was like, &amp;quot;That&amp;#x27;s called pop singing, not classical singing. You can&amp;#x27;t do that here.&amp;quot; That was a defining moment where it was like, oh, so I shouldn&amp;#x27;t sing the choir solo like Mariah Carey? Rude! So that was when I figured I would sing pop, and I&amp;#x27;ve always been a fan of the icons I grew up watching&amp;amp;#8212;Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson, Blondie, and then later, Carole King, Fiona Apple, and the whole singer-songwriter thing. Actually, my first album was more singer-songwriter-oriented. In my head, I wanted to be Madonna, but the music I was writing on paper was not what you&amp;#x27;d choreograph dancers in costumes to. It was more coffee-house stuff. I had to switch gears after that because I was just so green that I had to sit down and learn how to really write a pop song. And that&amp;#x27;s what I did. It was a conscious effort to focus on a new and simpler way of writing. Take me back to the very beginning: What was the very first song you wrote and what/who was it about? Bonnie: I was writing songs as a kid about leprechauns and Catwoman and teapots&amp;amp;#8212;whatever it is that little girls wanna sing about. The first song I wrote was called &amp;quot;Kitten.&amp;quot; It was about a boy named Liam, who I was just crazy about. I was cooing about &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;ll be your kitten if you come around, I&amp;#x27;ll be your kitten, please don&amp;#x27;t let me down.&amp;quot; Just a bunch of tacky metaphors and trying to be very sexy, and I was like, 13 at the time. I remember my dad playing guitar on the demo for me and singing it with him and realizing...well, this is inappropriate, probably shouldn&amp;#x27;t be doing this. So that&amp;#x27;s that. What was it like growing up in California? It seems to be a major source of inspiration for you, having written &amp;quot;California Gurls&amp;quot; and now your own all-American smash &amp;quot;American Girl.&amp;quot; Bonnie: Absolutely. I was born in Northern California and lived there until I was about eight years old. Then my parents moved me up to Seattle. I lived there from ages eight to 16. When I was a California kid, I remember running around in my bathing suit and barefoot all the time and getting a suntan. When my parents were like, &amp;quot;We&amp;#x27;re going to the Northwest,&amp;quot; I thought, You&amp;#x27;ve gotta be kidding me. I was so depressed. The cold weather really did not agree with me. When I moved back down to L.A. at 16, I felt like it was home&amp;amp;#8212;it was where I belonged. I fantasized about living in Los Angeles and going to beaches. In my mind, I imagined L.A. to be skyscrapers on the beach, of course, that&amp;#x27;s not what it actually looks like. And growing up watching Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place, I always had an obsession with L.A. and California in general. I&amp;#x27;m always writing about weather too, so when you listen to my first album, it&amp;#x27;s a lot darker because of the weather references. A whole different climate in the Northwest. While watching the video for &amp;quot;American Girl,&amp;quot; I noticed that you have the craziest sense of style. Who are your style inspirations? Bonnie: I love Gwen Stefani. It seems like she can wear anything, even when it shouldn&amp;#x27;t work, yet she always pulls it off. I love Blondie as well. I love picking from different generations and mixing and matching. I call it &amp;quot;street chic,&amp;quot; so I do a little bit of couture with thrift-store finds. But no matter what, I always have expensive designer shoes. It&amp;#x27;s all about the shoes for me. And tell me about your new song and video for &amp;quot;Sleepwalker.&amp;quot; Bonnie: I&amp;#x27;m really proud of this video. It&amp;#x27;s kinda like a mini-movie, and it&amp;#x27;s much different from &amp;quot;American Girl&amp;quot;&amp;amp;#8212;very dark, brutally honest, and sort of EDM-inspired. I did the song with Oliver (including U-Tern) and Boys Noize, who are three of my favorite DJs, all smushed into one song. You never get collaborations with a bunch of names like that, so I&amp;#x27;m really excited they could be a part of it. The video is also my ode to MJ&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;Thriller.&amp;quot; I feel like nobody ever does anything fun for Halloween, so I wanted to have a new Halloween song! Do you ever take cues from all the pop divas you work with? What are some things you&amp;#x27;ve learned along the way? Bonnie: I&amp;#x27;ve been close friends with Katy since teenagers, before she was Katy Perry. She&amp;#x27;s always been a great resource for me to pull from and watch&amp;amp;#8212;from her choice of how public she wants to be about her personal life on down. I also watched her develop from the coffee-house singer-songwriter I knew to her be to playing arenas and killing it. I talk to her and Ke$ha a lot about what to expect on tour, what to expect when you&amp;#x27;re creating a pop record, and I definitely confide in them for tips. So, give us advice: How in the world does one break into the big world of pop songwriting? How did you do it? Bonnie: I moved to L.A. to make my own album and was an artist first. Then when I was dropped, I kinda started writing out of necessity. I was broke and didn&amp;#x27;t have hot water, a cell phone, a car, or anything. I just needed to feed myself, but I was only good at one thing. I met my boyfriend Oliver, who&amp;#x27;s in a group called Oliver. He&amp;#x27;s an amazing DJ, songwriter, and producer who just got off a tour with Zedd. He was working with Josh Abraham, who started a boutique publishing company called Pulse. So they brought me and in and took me under their wing and taught me all about the songwriting business. Luckily they believed in me enough to put me in the room with different artists as a crash course. In one session, I caught the attention of Dr. Luke, and he obviously knew Katy as well, so they tapped me to write for her second album (Teenage Dream). Things took off from there. I wrote four songs on her new record, PRISM: &amp;quot;Roar,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Legendary Lovers,&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Birthday,&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Ghost.&amp;quot; You&amp;#x27;re working on an album that&amp;#x27;s scheduled to come out spring of next year. What can listeners and fans expect from the new record? Do you have a name for it yet? Bonnie: It&amp;#x27;s definitely just a big anthemic pop record, very &amp;#x27;80s influenced and pulling from lots of nostalgic moments. It&amp;#x27;s very bright and visual, which my trademark is visual lyrics. It covers a vast scope of emotions because it&amp;#x27;s been written over the years as my career has grown. I&amp;#x27;ve been squirreling songs away&amp;amp;#8212;everything from heartbreak to perseverance to partying, not partying, having enough of the party, and so on. I&amp;#x27;ve been working with Oliver, Dr. Luke, Max Martin, Greg Kurstin, Benny Blanco, Billboard, the usual suspects, I suppose. Oh, and also Joakim [Ahlund] of [Swedish experimental band] Teddybears. He&amp;#x27;s awesome! I haven&amp;#x27;t named the album yet because I&amp;#x27;m not finished. I want to wait until the last minute for that. What would you say is the biggest difference between being a behind-the-scenes collaborator to being front and center? What are your greatest challenges? Bonnie: There&amp;#x27;s definitely a difference. For me, I have other creative outlets I can use now. I&amp;#x27;m a really visual artist, and I love writing treatments for music videos, photo shoots, fashion, and all the visual parts that go along with making an album. I kind of miss out on that when I can write a song for someone else and have a whole vision for a music video and what I would do if I were singing it, but I have no say because it&amp;#x27;s not my album. So, I definitely love being able to use my brain and dig in that way. What are your current pop-culture obsessions, past or present? Bonnie: I love really kitschy bad movies. Showgirls is one of my favorites. I saw House of Versace and died. I&amp;#x27;m a big fan of made-for-TV movies because those are instant classics, naturally. I&amp;#x27;m really into nail art. Every little nail bud is a tiny palette. I remember not that long ago if you had one different color on your ring finger, everyone would stop and be like, Oh my God, that is so tacky. Now it&amp;#x27;s like how wild can you get. My friend Natalie Nichole is on Instagram at Nail Swag and she does amazing work. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/entertainment/blogs/obsessed/2013/10/bonnie-mckee-interview>