Bonnie McKee is Making Hits

She was checking out new music with her friend “Katie.” Later — way later — realized it was Katy Perry, McKee’s frequent collaborator, for whom she wrote indelible hits like “California Gurls” and “Teenage Dream,” perhaps the most aching pop song of the past two decades. From Cher, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera—she wrote songs for them all.

I suspect I’m not the only one who’s had McKee in their peripheral vision for the past 15 years Even if people haven’t realized it, she’s been driving the cultural beat that sets the daily pace of their lives.

How exactly, did this high beam of a human manage to thrive as the woman behind the women? “I started my music life a choir girl,” says McKee when she phones me from LA. “I sang choral music in a big group as a kid. You had to blend. You had no choice.” Singing Gregorian chants at prestigious music festivals instilled a fierce work ethic in McKee. They would drill us for hours and hours and hours!” she says. That definitely carried into her musical career. I see people peace out after a few hours in a music studio, and I’m like, “No. I’m still ready to go. It also helped a lot with music theory, rhythm, harmony. Choir music is pretty difficult, and I learned how to read it by sight. I’m really, really grateful for all of it.”

The experience helped McKee “put on my therapist hat” as a songwriter in the 2010s, when her clients included not just Perry but Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert, and Rita Ora. It’s essentially a service industry!” she says about her work writing “Roar” and other era-defining hits I’m there to help until the full vision of the song. The music is the most important thing, always. I get to mentor an artist and hold her hand on a creative journey. I consider that a real honor. I’m lucky I’m good at it. “Good at it” is an understatement: in interviews and critical discourse, McKee is routinely named as one of the best. She says that often, she begins building songs based on memory sometimes recalling events, sometimes just feelings. “I really believe that having an element of truth behind whatever you’re writing shines through,” she explains. “The audience can pick up on authenticity, even when you’re writing an arty banger, there’s got to be true humanity in it.

One of the most important things she’s passing along to the next generation of artists. “I live for my Gen Z girlies,” she says, “I see a lot of my younger self in them,” she says. “It’s really rewarding because I didn’t have somebody like that in my life. And there’s still a lot of industry bullshit