Katy Perry Talks To Kristen Wiig About Chicken Bombs And Writing “Dark” Music

Becky Bain | March 2, 2012 9:49 am

For some reason, Interview magazine thought it would be fun for Saturday Night Live‘s Kristen Wiig to interview cover girl Katy Perry, and what do you know, they were right! The two kick things off with Katy recounting a bomb scare she had right before her concert in the Philippines that turned out to just be chicken hidden in a backpack (“We call it the chicken bomb now,” says Katy), and heads off into possible nicknames for Barbra Steisand’s fan base (“Streisanders? Streisies?”) and the time Kristen gave Katy a lock of her hair on the set of SNL. “I remember thinking, This is either the creepiest thing I’ve ever done or it’s the best,” remembers Wiig. More charming highlights below.

Perry reveals that she’s had the urge to record an acoustic album for awhile now — though we may point out she has already done this, in the form of an MTV Unplugged album. “I’ve actually always wanted to make something like an acoustic record. My favorite record is a Patty Griffin record that I discovered while I was in Nashville called Flaming Red [1998].”

“I do some acoustic stuff in my show, a couple of songs,” she adds. “But it’s something that I’m really excited about because I know I can do it and I haven’t really played that card yet. I’ve been thinking about my future and what the next move is in terms of what I need to do. I think it would be pretty stupid to try and redo this last record that had all of this success . . . Maybe it’s time to do something that’s different that can’t be compared.”

Whether she’s plugged in or not, Katy’s next release won’t be as sunny and cheerful as Teenage Dream: “My music is about to get real fucking dark,” she tells Wiig. Why, what on Earth could have caused that?

Read the full interview — and watch a black-and-white video of Katy (looking more like Amy Winehouse than Katy Perry) during her photo shoot — here.