Her true colors

Pink’s new album puts her singing first

“You want a beer?” Pink asked, though she seemed more than happy to drink alone. Standing in her cheerfully cluttered kitchen on a recent evening, the pop star had just finished a lengthy television shoot at her home north of Los Angeles and was now overseeing dinner for her 9-month-old son, Jameson. In the living room, Pink's 6-year-old daughter, Willow — the subject of a moving speech her mother gave at the MTV Video Music Awards about stifling beauty standards — was practicing cartwheels as her father, Carey Hart, prepared to take her for a motorcycle ride. “Don't be home too late,” Pink told Hart, a retired motocross racer. “School tomorrow.” It had been a long day, and it wasn't over yet. “Cheers,” the singer said, turning to me with a weary grin. At this point, Pink, 38, is accustomed to hanging in there — and to doing more than one thing at a time. On “Beautiful Trauma,” Pink takes up many of her reliable themes — fear, anxiety, the lure of damaged love — in productions pulling from rock, folk and hip-hop. Yet the music, which Pink created alongside studio wizards such as Max Martin and Jack Antonoff, feels designed to showcase her powerful singing. Pink's singing isn't merely a technical achievement; its emotion also gives her records a welcome timeless quality. Which doesn't mean she hasn't been “terrified” to get back in the game. What's scary about putting out an album? You've done it plenty of times. I have two kids — I have a baby. And it's so different now. I'm not inclined toward drama and feuds and soundbites. But I almost got caught up in it. I was doing radio in London, and we played this game called “Pink Fast.” They're like, “Team Katy or Team Taylor?” And I said, “Either way, I can't win — but Taylor?” And I should've just kept my mouth shut, because I don't believe that. I don't care. But I felt rushed, and I didn't know what to do. And I paid for it, because then the next day: “Pink is Team Taylor.” Does the climate surprise you? It surprises me how snarky it's gotten. There were always these feuds between rock stars — I mean, if you like Oasis, there's always a feud. But it's gotten pretty bad. And we're giving our power away by playing into it. It's become the main way to stay in the conversation. I can't base my self-worth off this stuff because it's silly. I've chased that carrot my whole life. I wanted to get the hell out of Doylestown and get to Venice Beach and get discovered and change the world. But I'm going off a thing that died at Woodstock. My model was the model my dad gave me, which was Steven Tyler singing “Dream On” and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and this thing where everybody hangs out together and has bonfires every night, and somebody gets lit on fire but they're OK. That's what I'm buying into. Do you see new things to get excited about? Real moments like Kendrick Lamar's performance (at the VMAs) — people that are still out there, still really kicking ass and doing it from an authentic place. That's super-inspiring to me. I walked into that night feeling a little bit like an outsider as always. But I did my performance, and I said something to my daughter, and I felt really good about that because it was an authentic mom moment for me. That speech touched a lot of people. It did. I got a lot of cool Twitters from mamas. Willow and I have a really good connection. I tell her very honestly about my life, and she listens. “Beautiful Trauma” has some heavy moments. You wrote “Whatever You Want” with Max Martin about a couple whose “ship's going down

tonight” — not exactly the type of pop banger he’s known for.

I wasn't feeling that way most of the time in the last four years. I spent a year just writing slow, sad songs, thinking I was Adele.

When you work with Max or Jack Antonoff or one of these other A-list guys, do you think the process is different from how they work with other singers?

I have very honest conversations with them. If they play me something, I'm like, “No, that could be anybody — I'm not doing that.” It has to be a little bit darker. But, you know, Max is a closet punk rocker.

Last thing: Billy Joel recently told me you guys had worked together.

Billy Joel is, in my opinion, one of the best songwriters that's ever lived. He paints a picture with words unlike any other. I walked down the aisle to “She's Always a Woman.” I grew up listening to him with my dad. He was the first concert I ever went to at 2 years old. I did the Songwriters Hall of Fame 15 or 16 years ago, and I saw him and went over to him and I went, “Hi, you don't know me, but I'm Pink, and I want you to write a song with me.” He goes, “I'm sorry, I can't do that — I don't write pop music anymore.”

Then I ran into him again — I brought my dad to his concert, and he had us backstage. Then I went to a master class of his in Times Square. And I've never left him alone. I've never stopped asking. He always says no — he's kind, but he's firm. But then we ran into him in the Bahamas at a piano bar. I bought a very good bottle of wine and sent him a glass. He came over and I said, “You gonna write that song with me?” He said, “OK, I'll try it.” So several months ago I flew to Palm Beach with my brand new baby and we tried to write a song. And? He's too good for me. I clammed up. But we're gonna keep trying. He goes, “Do me a favor: Go home, pick out the best poem you've ever written and send it to me, and I'll make you a song.” I got home and was like, “All my poems are the worst pieces of trash I've ever seen in my life.”