ENTERTAINMENT
From Issue #8
COVER STORY: P!NK
Doing It Her Way
By Karen Coyle 
High
school is tough. And if you were to ask Pink her opinion on
the subject she'd tell you the same. Before she became famous,
and when she was still called Alicia Moore, the young superstar
faced more than her fair share of high school drama.
In
her interview with Faze, Pink admits she was stereotyped as
a troublemaker at school, "The problem was, I was labelled
as trouble - so I was like, 'trouble?' I'll show you trouble.
You want trouble, well here it is!"
Unfortunately, Pink began to deliver what the teachers expected
and the vicious cycle began. "It's like the label they
give you, you grow into it anyway. They treat you bad, so you
act bad," Pink says and continues, "Did I deserve
it? - in the end yes, but I feel I just conformed to the label
they gave me. I think a lot of kids just get frustrated and
act the way the teachers expect them to."
It's no surprise that eventually Pink developed a problem with
authority, "When they would say it had to be a certain
way I would ask 'why?' They'd say, 'Because it always has,'
so I'd try to prove them wrong."
However, Pink says she never really minded being the outcast.
"I'm fine with it," she claims, "I never changed
just to fit in."
Predictably, Pink dropped out of school and soon after began
to sing in nightclubs. She sang any chance she could get and
was eventually discovered by a talent scout while singing in
a club in Philadelphia.
However, she did not always sing the type of music we are used
to hearing her perform. One of her favourite singers is Linda
Perry from 4 Non Blondes. Pink spent a lot of time covering
her tunes in the local clubs and even started wearing the fancy
hats and combat boots associated with Perry. As an aspiring
artist, Pink was open to all types of music and was even a singer
in a punk band for a short time.
Her musical interests vary from Billy Joel to Madonna to Danny
Hathaway and she's told her fans if she could open up for anyone
it would be Michael Jackson and if she could do a duet with
anyone it would be with Steven Tyler from Aerosmith.
Pink was sixteen when she signed with LaFace Records, and as
we know, she was launched into stardom with several hit songs
and an MTV Best Video Award for, "Lady Marmalade."
She writes most of her songs herself, some with a little help
from her friends, including Linda Perry.
Despite what seems obvious, Pink did not get her name from her
hair colour: she actually dyed her hair to match her name. As
a young girl she was easily embarrassed which caused her to
turn bright pink. Later, the nickname became permanent after
the release of Reservoir Dogs and the colourful character of
'Mr.Pink'. Currently, our young pop star is sporting a less-wild
blonde hair-do, which apparently is her natural colour.
However, with her rise to fame and all that comes with it, her
relationship with her family has remained the same. She told
fans in a Launch chat that nothing has changed with her family,
"I'm very close with my dad," she said of her father,
a Vietnam vet, who is also one of her idols in life. "He's
real and tells it like it is and he's consistent. He doesn't
change."
She does not regret anything she has done and would not change
her past if she could. "To change that would change who
I am," she said in her Faze interview. She believes having
faced so many difficulties at a young age is a good thing. "To
experience the good you have to have seen the bad. Plus it makes
you appreciate blessings more," she says.
Pink also believes that tough times make you stronger. "It
taught me to be a fighter, which you need to be if you want
to get into the music industry," she says and recalls,
"My record label wanted me to record my album a certain
way and I wanted to go another way, I just didn't want to conform
to everyone else - I think I did the right thing."
For a long time Pink has felt she has been misunderstood. She says that 'life' was her
inspiration for her recent album, Missundazstood! And also says,
"I think we all feel misunderstood, and our main goal is
to be appreciated for all that we are - most of the time we
don't even understand ourselves."
Pink encourages us to be ourselves and not to worry about being
labelled. "Just wait," she says, "Give it a couple
of years then it won't matter. Because no matter what label
they give you, the best thing you can do is prove them wrong."
