Pink on her longevity and a powerful new album: Trustfall

Q53:59Pink + Sarah Gadon

The full conversation with Pink is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts..

For as long as she's been a star, Pink has been the focus of naysayers. From culture critics who compared her relentlessly to the other standouts of her pop-music generation — Britney, Christina, Mandy Moore— to industry cynics, a lot of people seemed to be rooting for Pink's downfall. She was even voted "most likely to be behind bars in ten years" in her 10th grade yearbook. 

But two decades later, the singer is considered a generation-defining performer with over 135 million records and a devoted fan base that led to her 2018 Beautiful Trauma world tour becoming the second highest-grossing tour of all time by a female solo artist.

Pink's ninth studio album Trustfall comes out on February 17th, and draws from her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the loss of both her father and close friend. While the inspiration may be heart-wrenching, the upbeat single Never Gonna Not Dance Again sets the carpe diem tone of the record. 

"We waste so many moments not doing what we want to do because we live in our heads, and we worry about shit that doesn't matter," she told Tom Power on a new episode of Q. "Because if the world is ending, and we're sliding sideways of our axis, then fuck it. I want to dance!"

The following has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to the full interview on the Q with Tom Power podcast.

In all honesty, could you have ever predicted that you would have lasted this long in this music?

No, but I wasn't really thinking that way then. I don't think anybody does. I mean, I don't know what people think — who knows? I just know my weird brain. I think I would have probably been voted the least likely.

Why do you think that of all the Christinas and Britneys and Mandy Moores, that people would have felt like you were the least likely to hang on?

I would just read articles about myself, and that's what they would always write, so I sort of ingested that. People say that still! No one can believe it's me hanging on, but I'm really, really, really, really hard working, and I also have a lot to say.

What did you find yourself saying on this record?

The beautiful thing about this album is how long I took to make it. As a songwriter, your favourite song is the last one you wrote because it's new and it's what you wanted to say most recently. But then, once you have the songs long enough, some fall by the wayside and it's more of an editing process.

This album was curated over three years and a lot happened in all of our lives. Besides the pandemic, I lost my father and I lost one of my dearest friends eight months later. I'm still parenting young children. I'm a wife of 17 years. I have friendships and relationships and responsibilities. I write about what's happening in my life. I think each album, for me, is a chapter of where I was right then. I could never write Missundaztood today because I'm not a 17 year old punk anymore.

Is When I Get There, the first track off the record, about your dad?

Mm hmm, but I've lost a lot of people in my life. It could be about any of them, and I wonder where they go. Like my little boy walks around the kitchen island and he goes "Hey, Grandpop" because he doesn't know what to say. But I always tell him "You can talk to your ancestors and your angels and they're always listening." The idea that he's out there somewhere watching over us is a nice idea.

I actually didn't write that song, that song was a gift. David Hodges and Amy Wedge sent me that song after my dad passed away, and it just felt like such a balm. I couldn't write that song, I haven't unpacked that suitcase yet.

There's a great video of you singing a song he had written about his time in the service

Yeah, I actually put that on one of my albums. Man, he could finger pick with the best of them. He could play the hell out of a guitar. He always wanted to be a rock star. My brother and I lived out both of his dreams. My dad was what he called a "grunt" in the Air Force, just enlisted, and my brother became a lieutenant colonel before he retired. And that was one of my dad's dreams, and to be a rock star. 

So then this guy, who has these big dreams of being a rock star, gets to see his daughter live that very rare life that he had sort of imagined for himself. You must feel something from that.

I mean, relationships are complicated. My dad was a very complicated man. He had a really hard life, and he was just a guy. I don't care who you are, or how much money you have, or where you're from, relationships are complicated. I think he was happy for me. I'm sure he was proud of me.

You wrote Never Not Going To Dance Again, which is the lead single off the record with Max Martin and Shellback. Max Martin doesn't talk to a lot of people, and he's one of the greatest hitmakers in history. Could you talk to me a little bit about working together and how that song came about?

Max and I did not want to work together in the beginning. We were put together by the record company just to see what happens. When I met him, I brought three bottles of wine to the first session, and he goes "What kind of a song do you want to write?" I go "I want to write a song about death," just to kind of screw with him, and then we wrote Who Knew on the first day and polished off one of those bottles. 

He really surprised me, because he's actually a closet punk rocker, and his knowledge of music is so vast and he's such a genius. He pulls from every genre, like I do, and he's funny as hell. He's got the driest, awesomest, sense of humour; very charming and a good guy. We've worked together over the years. I flew to Sweden while I was possibly getting a divorce from my husband, and it was a really dark time in my life, and we wrote So What the first day, and then we wrote I Don't Believe You and Please Don't Leave Me. We've written all of these beautiful songs together that have marked serious moments in my life. 

So I'm sitting at home during the pandemic and I thought about when your kid gets sick, or you lose a parent — those are times when life really gets distilled down into what matters. Who am I? Who do I want to be? What's stopping me? I thought about times like when my kids want to play with me on the beach, and I'm feeling insecure about my body, and I missed the opportunity to make a memory with them because I was stuck in my head. Or when you're out, and a song comes on, and you want to get up and be free and dance but you're not the best dancer. We waste so many moments not doing what we want to do because we live in our heads, and we worry about shit that doesn't matter. So I called him, and I said "Hey, I want to write a song. I want it to be called Never Going To Not Dance Again." Because if the world is ending, and we're sliding sideways of our axis, then fuck it. I want to dance! I said "No pressure, but it has to be the best song we've ever written."

Are you a changed person coming out of this time away? 

Yeah, for sure. I think losing a parent is a suitcase that you will unpack for the rest of your life, especially, like I said, relationships are complicated. But yeah, I'm learning every day. I'm learning real solid lessons, and I'm also learning that there's so many bat-shit people in the world and I'm learning that I do have a pretty sick sense of humour that I am able to fall back on — most of the time.

Why do you think you've been able to survive in an industry that doesn't always allow for that kind of survival?

Well, I kind of did things a little differently than most of the other artists out there. I realized very early that credit is not just given easily to young, female pop stars. So I'm going to put my head down, I'm going to stay humble, and I'm going to pound the pavement all over the world and I'm going to become the best performer I can be. The creative process and performance are my favorite things in the world. 

I'm going to let everybody else sell perfume, and be popular and be pretty, and I'm going to go work my ass off. I did it backwards. Whereas a lot of people have to put an album out to sell tickets, I don't have to do that. I can just go on tour because I've worked my ass off at being able to play stadiums, arenas or clubs. I've done it for 20 years and I love it! Maybe it's because I'm relentless, maybe it's because I did it backwards and maybe it's because I have an open dialog with the people that are listening to my music. I'm being really vulnerable, and open and honest. I'm not trying to write like the next Bach, I'm trying to save my soul.

I had the best manager that ever did it. I mean, Roger Davies manages Cher, Joe Cocker, Sade, Tina Turner, Janet Jackson. I mean, these are some of the best live acts that have ever been, and he knows touring and that was what we did. You have to love it. It's too hard to do if you don't love it.

Do you find yourself giving that kind of advice to young performers now?

No, no. I try not to give advice. I hate people that give advice!

I've given advice on how to tour with babies, because it's impossible and I did it somehow, but I came into the music business when it was a completely different business. I don't know what to tell anybody now.I don't know how this shit works. I'm not on Tik Tok, I don't know what to tell you. I give my daughter a lot of advice, and she's over it.

Is there a song on the record that's particularly meaningful to you that maybe isn't going to get the love of the other songs?

Oh, my goodness gracious great balls of fire. I love every song on the record, but I would say either Lost Cause or Turbulence.

With Lost Cause there's so many good lines in that song. It's vocally challenging and wonderful. I learned it from my mom, but when I get into an argument I'm really mean, and I don't want to do that anymore. You can throw stones at me, you can hate me, you can tell me I'm a loser, but don't tell me I'm a lost cause. Don't tell me that I can't be better, please don't tell me that there's zero redemption in my humanity.

In Turbulence I'm speaking to anxiety. I'm almost speaking to my child about anxiety, and my favourite line in that song is "When you say that you can't, I will watch you dance through this turbulence."