When Linda Perry wrote 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up?” decades ago, during “the Reagan years” when the so-called Teflon President was “doing some fucked-up stuff,” she was “just sitting in my bedroom, and that song just showed up. Life inspires the art,” she recalls, speaking with Lyndsanity at her recent collaborator Ringo Starr’s 85th-birthday Peace & Love Celebration. When the alt-rock protest anthem was eventually released in 1993, just two months after President George H. W. Bush left the Oval Office and Bill Clinton entered the White House, its message obviously still resonated, as it became a top 10 hit in 17 different countries.
And when the recently reunited 4 Non Blondes perform “What’s Up?” in 2025, the song is still sadly very relevant. Perry never even considered updating its lyrics — “I don’t have to, because ‘25 years’ could start anytime,” she says, referencing the opening line, “25 years and my life is still/Tryin’ to get up that great big hill of hope/For a destination.” When 4 Non Blondes played “What’s Up?” at the Wonderfront and BottleRock festivals and at Nashville Pride this year, Perry “had totally the same emotion as I did when I was 25 when I wrote it,” and she felt that same emotion among the crowds.
“When we play it, oh my God — it’s like there’s kids, there’s adults, there’s teenagers, there’s hipsters, there’s everybody in that crowd, and all people are singing it. That’s why that song is so good. It’s going to be good 10 years from now, when we’re in another crisis or something else. It’s just got a message that’s relatable and consistent, because somebody’s always trying to fuck with us. So, it’s like that song’s going to go all the way till the end.”
Perry admits that when reflecting on “What’s Up?’s” original inspirations, she can’t help but think, “Here we are again. And it’s like, really? Really? Are we here once a-fucking-gain? … But I think that’s the whole thing: How do we deal with life and what it presents? You can get angry, or you can get creative.”
Perry’s latest creative endeavor is, surprisingly, a new 4 Non Blondes album. The group only released one LP (from which “What’s Up?” was the second single, preceded, interestingly, by the less successful but also topical “Dear Mr. President”). And then, despite the album being called Bigger, Better, Faster, More!, there was no more; the group split up just a year later. Perry went on to become an in-demand songwriter for pop superstars like Christina Aguilera, P!nk, Gwen Stefani, and Alicia Keys, and she “didn’t even consider” a 4 Non Blondes reunion until very recently, when “all of a sudden I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll be open to it.’ I just kind of said to the universe, ‘Yeah, bring it on.’” And now, a 4 Non Blondes sophomore album is finally in the works.
“In my mind, it was what would’ve been the next record. So, it’s just basically we had a 30-year pause, but here’s the album that would’ve happened,” Perry muses. At their recent festival gigs, 4 Non Blondes have actually only played three songs from Bigger, Better, Faster, More! because, as Perry explains, “I cannot play more than that, because they’re not representative of who I am. They would not be believable at all coming from me, even though I wrote those songs.” Instead, 4 Non Blondes have been live-debuting new tunes like “Push and Shove,” “Strange Places,” “Drop the Bomb,” “Drama Queen,” and one that Perry describes as “really, really powerful” titled “Monomorphic.”
“All my songs have some kind of intention of, ‘Hey, we’ve got to check out what’s happening here,’” explains Perry. “It’s all very cohesive. [The upcoming 4 Non Blondes album] was like one long thought.”
Perry says she does feel some of that early-‘90s spirit, when MTV’s Kurt Loder/Tabitha Soren-dominated programming grid was filled with “Choose or Lose” and “Rock the Vote” specials, coming back in the era of Trump. “But I also feel like there’s a lot of hesitation to be [politically] active, because [artists are] afraid of what’s going to happen to them — all the cancellations, all the stuff. … Now we have to get arrested or killed or completely disposed of because we have a belief. That’s the world we’re in right now,” she laments. “Everything is criticized. Everything is judged. They will find a flaw in every single thing that you do. And that is the true political statement: saying, ‘I don’t care what happens to me. I’m going to say what I’m going to say, because it’s my belief.’”
With her always unfiltered and unapologetic opinions, Perry doesn’t seem like the type of artist who’s ever worried about being “canceled” herself. “I don’t. But I do for my child,” she stresses, referring to her 10-year-old son, Rhodes. “I have a child that I have to protect and stand by and make sure they understand the world we’re in and how much they can be a part of change — but I also have to be honest with them and let them know these are the things that could happen to you when you are fighting for change.”
As Perry wraps up her Lyndsanity interview so she can rejoin Starr’s birthday festivities, she’s asked what the phrase “peace and love” means to her. “It means being able to express your emotions and feelings and beliefs without someone trampling over what your belief is,” she states. “I think we all have one common denominator: We all believe in something. If you go to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, there are Muslims, Christians, Catholics… there’s so many different religions living under one small town, and they all respect each other. That to me is peace and love, because they are giving each other the room and respect to honor what they believe.”
