Katy with Kitty Purry. (Photo credit: Cobrasnake)

Pop song stylist Katy Perry (“I Kissed A Girl”) does not hold back in an interview. She says what she thinks and what she thinks is smart, sassy and funny. Perry, who makes her AC debut at the Borgata next Thursday, July 30, in support of her platinum debut album, One of The Boys, talked with AC Weekly about her breakout year, disappointments earlier in her career and what’s next from her. Her complete interview was too long for the pages of AC Weekly so we’ve provided the full-length interview here.

Can you sum up how the past year has gone for you?
I found my lucky star and I’ve been holding on. It’s been like a hurricane but I feel like I live in the eye of the hurricane. I pace myself and I do my job and I’m very focused, but there’s been a lot going on. I’m in Istanbul, Turkey today and tomorrow I’ll be in Dublin. For this little European run I’ve been in a different city with a different language practically every day. It has been a wreck trying to order room service.

Several labels dropped you before Capitol/EMI came along. Any revenge fantasies against those labels?
I definitely don’t need to say anything. Some of them folded or had to melt into other companies because of [financial] problems. Well, I could have kept your company alive. Obviously, success is the sweetest revenge. It wasn’t easy [being dropped] but it isn’t easy for anybody. It’s a different music industry. I really respect the new artists who are coming in and making a career of it. It’s kind of easy to be a flash in the pan. It’s really hard to [sustain] a career.

It’s great to get discovered via the Internet, but so much of that aspect of the music business involves fans looking for the next new thing. That has to be tougher for maintaining a career.
That is how our world is. Everybody wants it now. Fast. Yesterday. To me it feels like an over-sensitized ADD world, where it is hard to get people’s attention and keep their attention. It’s kind of a one in a million chance to have a big success these days. I love the Internet and I use it to my advantage. I twitter and I blog. I just did it before the record came out; it wasn’t like somebody told me to do it to be part of a marketing scheme. It’s something that makes me happy, to share my weird, funny silly goofy side through that. With [the internet exposure] you are getting people to buy singles. After putting out four singles, finally people are realizing, ‘Maybe there is other stuff on the record so I should go buy the record.’ It’s takes a little bit longer to win over the fans, but they come around if you stick with it.

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