Christina Perri, self confessed tattoo addict who loves to talk a lot with a mum that can whistle better than some people can sing. This lady already had plenty going on before she added the title of ‘professional musician’ to her list.
Christina grew up in Philadelphia with her hairdressing and accordion playing parents and her brother Nick who’s also a professional musician these days. Despite the fact that both Christina and Nick have keenly pursued music she says that no one else in her family has, although she absolutely raves about her mother’s whistling skills, “mean she can whistle like anyone can sing like she can whistle any note in any octave, it’s pretty unbelievable so I’d say that she has something musical in her.”
On her 21st birthday Christina moved to Los Angeles and began producing music video’s, later that year she also got married but unfortunately it ended in divorce 18 months later and Christina moved home to Philadelphia again. It was about this time when she wrote Jar of Hearts and after recharging her batteries and sorting her head out she moved back to LA to focus on her music once again while waitressing.
It wasn’t very long after that when Jar of Hearts was featured on an American TV show, So You Think You Can Dance, and it began selling hundreds of thousands of digital copies. Soon after this Christina was approached by Atlantic Records. Christina says that she just doesn’t think about all the fame and everything that’s happened to her in the past year because she’d “trip out”. Her secret to staying grounded is not taking it all too seriously and trying to just have fun with it, “I kind of have to look at it with a weird lens, I try to just enjoy everything that happens, the scary stuff I get through and the fun stuff I enjoy.”
Having had her life put on fast forward and moving from a waitress to a singer songwriter that’s jet setting to loads of places doesn’t seem to have changed Christina at all, she is genuine and open, she seems very excited about everything. Talking about people who she’s met and have absolutely made her lost for words she says, “I met Cher and couldn’t breathe.” Laughing she says that she was a huge Jason Mraz fan, “he’s been one of my favourite singers for like 10 years”, and adds that now they hang out and they’re friends and she has to keep her cool about him but she geeks out about it in interviews because she just genuinely can’t believe it’s happening sometimes.
Another one of Christina’s not so secret geeky loves is Twilight, she explains to me she’s a ‘Twihard’ and that the tattoo ‘Bitten’ on her wrist was inspired by the stories. On the most recent and third movie in the Twilight saga, Breaking Dawn, Christina was asked to write a song to appear in the movie and she says that even before she saw all the movies she could have written the song because of her love for Edward and Bella. A Thousand Years was released the day before my interview with Christina and the reception it was getting was amazing, even through her excitement she manages to be so endearingly humble, “I’m just really honoured as a little Twilight fan so it’s just really awesome.”
Talking about her music appearing on both X Factor and Glee, Christina doesn’t seem to have the usual industry standard answer that they are stealing and ruining songs, she’s actually so grateful for them because, as she put it, “where would I be without them?” Christina actually says that she admires people on the X Factor, “I’m watching all these shows and I’m crying and I’m so proud of them. I can’t even imagine auditioning in front of a stadium full of people, I mean that really freaked me out. I’m glad that I didn’t go down that road but I admire the people that do and I think those shows are great. They’re so connected to everyone; I mean my song was on that show and then it immediately shot up the iTunes charts, there’s such a connection there.”
Christina had earlier mentioned her tattoos and I asked her if they were part of her image or just a part of her, “, I’ve just been expressing myself with tattoos since I was 15, I don’t think having tattoos puts me in a genre, a music genre, I think it’s more just another expression of me…But it’s weird, that’s a tattooed persons thinking, there’s tattooed people and non tattooed people and I think their thoughts on it are always very different.”
Both in person and on camera you get the impression that Christina Perri is just a laid back girl who happened to stumble into the magical world of stardom by complete accident. She’s not exactly your stereotypical female singer songwriter but that’s just what makes her so brilliantly unique, “I don’t have this like super image, I feel very lucky that I get to wake up every day and be me whatever that looks like y’know? Like lots of tattoos. I don’t feel as though I have to put on this costume every day and be this character so I think that that comes across too.”
Christina is a mix of cultures, her father is Italian, and she also describes her musical tastes and influences as ‘a bit of a jumble’. She grew up listening to singer song writers that her Mom loves like Elton John and Carol King as well as some of her dad’s classical Italian music as well. She then became a Beatles addict at the age of 12 and at 16 she was constantly listening to love songs. She goes on to talk about female artists that are really influencing her right now like Lissie, Adele and Florence And The Machine but she finishes by saying that her biggest inspiration is love and that all the musicians she listens to and gets re-inspired by just help her to express herself.
Christina Perri isn’t someone who shouts about what she’s doing but she doesn’t need to. Her easy charm and her beautiful heartfelt songs speak volumes anyway. With genuine enthusiasm she tells me that she’s so excited for Halloween because she thought she was going to be on a flight for it and she begins musing about costume ideas as we say goodbye. Christina’s optimism and positive thinking might not be apparent in some of her songs but it’ll soon rub off on you either way.
By Alyce MacPherson
