Another Party Gets Started With Pink

Pink examines her face in the rearview mirror and tries to wipe off a layer or two of the makeup from a recent photo shoot. "God, I look like a drag queen," she says in a sandpaper voice that makes her sound like a waffle-house waitress pulling night shift. "So maybe the rumors are true." The plush carpet of her top-of-the-line Range Rover--which she insists on calling her "truck"--is littered with empty Newport packs, the dashboard dusted with ash, the back crammed with boxes of unidentifiable junk. She's sitting here in the driveway of her house in suburban Los Angeles with the engine and air conditioner running, because she's finally agreed to share some of her upcoming album, and the stereo inside the house is "too crap to play anything on." She bangs on the steering wheel in time to "Trouble," the closest she's ever come to exposing her punk-rock roots, then begins swaying to a surprisingly gauzy ballad called "Waiting for Love." "This is my first love song," she says. "I've only ever written hate songs. My last two albums were 'I hate you. You're an a--hole. F--- you! And ha! Look at me now'." She takes a hit off another Newport. "But I'd change this now if I had the chance. I'd change it to a hate ballad."

It's not that anything's gone particularly wrong in her current relationship, with Motocross champ Carey Hart. Pink's just cranky. A healthy dose of obstinacy and attitude--and a maybe-not-so-healthy amount of anger--have made the 23-year-old Pink (born Alecia Moore) one of the current pop scene's only credible anti-heroes. This isn't just because of the juvenile-delinquent cool she projects in her glossy, MTV-tailored videos. Since her slickly crafted 2000 debut album, "Can't Take Me Home," she's morphed from a teen-oriented novelty act--a white girl singing R&B--to a genre-jumping rebel whose cause is creative control. Pink's new album, "Try This," due in November, will be the best test yet of what she can do. On the 2001 "M!ssundaztood," she chose the forgotten '90s alt-rock singer Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes to co-write the record, and to everyone's surprise but Pink's, it worked. Her bouncy club number "Get the Party --Started" did exactly that: the CD went multiplatinum, and the mix of sassy hip-hop, sneering pop and prom-night balladry got Pink to the 2002 MTV awards for best pop and dance videos. Her acceptance speech? "I'm way too drunk for this." But it was Pink's painfully plainspoken tales of her dysfunctional family life, rough teen years and (you guessed it) struggles with a bland, corporate music industry that gave the album a stature beyond its lofty chart position.

On Pink's hit single "Don't Let Me Get Me," she documented her battles with Arista-label head L. A. Reid. "L.A. told me you'll be a pop star/All you have to change is everything you are." Ultimately, though, she kept her head above the crowd of R&B and teen-pop singers by persuading Reid to let her follow her own instincts. "I was saying, 'Look, you've been in the business for 20 years, but I've been a consumer for 20 years'," Pink recalls. " 'I've stood in the lines. I'm the one the bouncers kick out. I'm closer to the streets. You think 14-year-olds are still playing with Barbies? The world has changed: 14-year-olds are cooking dinner for their parents these days. And when I was that age I was on drugs, running away from home'."

That would be Doylestown, Pa., just outside Philadelphia. Alecia's mother worked as an ER nurse; her father, an ex military man, sold insurance and taught Pink how to fight. "He's a full-contact-karate, Vietnam-vet, guerrilla-warfare-type dude," Pink says. "He taught me how to shoot guns, how to use knives, how to break wrists. He would clothesline me coming around the corner--you know, chest-deck me--put me on my back, then tell me, 'You should always be on your toes!' When boys chased girls in kindergarten, no one chased me or I'd beat 'em up. People have always been intimidated by me. I've always portrayed myself as a much tougher girl than I am."

When Pink's parents divorced--she was 8--she began picking more fights at school. By the time she was a teen, she was doing drugs and hopping from one music scene to another--punk, rave, hip-hop, rock, even gospel--getting up to sing whenever she could, but never quite fitting in. When she was 15, her mother finally kicked her out and she went to live with her dad. A year later, in 1996, she was signed to Reid's LaFace label as part of an R&B group, and then groomed for a solo career. Pink told much of this story in one of the most notorious segments of VH1's "Driven." "It made me so sad," she says now. "It was like, 'Dude, this is an early obituary. This is something other people can watch after you die'."

Seeing the music industry up close was a culture shock at first. "I was like, 'What is this? Nobody does drugs?' I was already clean by then, but still--people in suits?" And she's had to dial back her natural combativeness. "That was the hardest thing getting into this business. I was like, 'F--- with me and you'll pay.' I do miss fighting, but lawsuits suck." Still, it hasn't changed her scrappy style. She's got a crudely constructed skate ramp in her backyard, a dog named F---er and a bullhorn she uses to yell obscenities at Hart when they argue. Then there's the skull-and-crossbones ring on her stubby finger, the bar code tattooed on the back of her neck and corky moore, the name of her recently deceased dog, on her inner forearm. Pink's still asthmatic, still smokes too much, is still a hypochondriac (who's never really been that sick) and a self-confessed "shut-in." She recorded much of the new album in her home studio, decorated with posters of Janis Joplin and Bob Marley. "Janis. Dylan. Hendrix," she says. "They'd never get radio airplay these days. I always thought the '60s was when I was supposed to be alive."