Bonnie McKee
Bonnie McKee
Bonnie Leigh McKeeis an American singer and songwriter. Her debut album, Trouble, was released in September 2004 under Reprise Records. After being dropped by Reprise several years after its release, McKee had taken a musical hiatus before establishing a name for herself as a songwriter. McKee has co-written eight singles that have reached #1 in the United States or the United Kingdom, which have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide combined. After sometime of focusing on songwriting, McKee released...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSongwriter
Date of Birth20 January 1984
CityVacaville, CA
CountryUnited States of America
I started writing songs when I was a little kid actually. I wrote a song about Catwoman and I wrote a song about Leprechauns, as a little kid.
Ke$ha is super talented and super fun and always down to party - I love that girl.
When I moved to Seattle in fourth grade, I joined the Seattle Girls' Choir. It's a world-class choir, and we competed, toured Europe, and went and sang at the Vatican, so it was a really awesome experience to have that young.
I like to think of myself as the people's pop star a little bit. I respect Lady Gaga so much, and I love what she does, but she has this kind of mysterious, out-of-reach thing. I'm just not that - as much as I'd love to have that sort of mystique, I think I'm kind of an open book.
I think what it means to be an 'American Girl,' and what I wrote the song about, is our freedoms. The idea that we as Americans can be what we want to be and say what we want to say and that we take it for granted.
I was always super, super musical. So my parents recognized that and put me in choirs, piano lessons, and all that.
I've always had a teenage thread running through my music.
I saw Tina Turner do 'Proud Mary' on TV, and it was so electrifying and such a unique experience. I remember crying out of excitement, and I knew that I wanted to be a performer and make people feel excited and moved, and that's why I gravitated towards it.
Cheating is bad. That's a big mistake I've made, and I've really hurt people. I've never lied about it, though. I've always been honest.
In my head, I wanted to be Madonna, but the music I was writing on paper was not what you'd choreograph dancers in costumes to. It was more coffee-house stuff.
I am a little crazy but when I'm on-stage, then I really get to play it up and perform and be over the top and it's like an outlet. It's fun to 'wild' out.
There's a feeling that you get when you write songs where... it feels like it's destined to do something. Then sometimes you get that feeling with a song and it never goes anywhere, that happens all the time too, so you never really know.
Sometimes I write a song and I'm down with it but I'm like yeah, whatever, and then everybody loves it and then it blows up. I'm like: "Okay! I didn't see that coming."
Every time I work with Dr. Luke I learn something new. He's kind of like the Andy Warhol of pop music, where he mass produces his art but it always still has heart and always still has an emotional thread to it. I think he's really a genius and I'm so lucky to have gotten to work with him.