Interview by Tom Lanham

Not everyone gets giddy over candy. But when kooky dance-pop kitten Ke$ha Sebert stomps into her San Francisco hotel lobby, clutching an industrial-sized jar of jelly beans, she’s floating on giggly Cloud Nine. “Look what they gave me for free down at the Wharf today!” she froths to representatives from her management team and her label, RCA. “Now while I run upstairs for a second, I want you each to try different flavors and report back to me on how they taste! I just looooove jelly beans!”
     Ke$ha’s childlike enthusiasm is so winning, her smile so goofy and unguarded, her audience has no choice but to do exactly what she says  — unscrew the lid and dig in. And if you imagine the effect those commanding qualities would have when unleashed upon a huge nightclub crowd — or even MTV/VH1 viewers — you’ve got a pretty good idea of the pop-cultural powder keg that’s just been ignited by the 22-year-old’s trashy, chart-smashing debut single, “TiK ToK.”
     Following in the stiletto-heeled footsteps of Katy Perry and Lady GaGa, Ke$ha (who performs sans surname; it’s pronounced KEH-shuh) is primed to become the first big breakout star of 2010 when her Animal album hits in January. Co-produced by Dr. Luke and assisted by pop vets like Max Martin and Benny Blanco, the record is all self-penned, allowing the LA-born, Nashville-bred singer to recount colorful stories from her truly offbeat existence. Yes, she snuck into Prince’s house just to meet the man. Yes, she once vomited in Paris Hilton’s closet. And yes, she lives a free-spirited hippie lifestyle in a Laurel Canyon crash pad where the Eagles  wrote “Hotel California” — the inspiration for her passed-out-in-the-bathtub video for “TiK ToK.” In short, Ke$ha has the real-deal jelly beans. And she’ll soon have the world eating out of her hand.
 
SHOCKHOUND: So you sure like candy, huh?
 
KE$HA: Oh yeah! And what was really spooky today was, I was just minding my own business down at Fisherman’s Wharf when this guy pulled me out of a crowd and offered me not only the jelly beans, but money. So I got paid $100 to eat a bunch of candy. It was just…just spooky.
 
SHOCKHOUND: Do lots of spooky things happen to you? Have you ever, say, seen a ghost?
 
KE$HA: Yes! And I’m actually so into it. I drove cross-country in December of last year, and I stayed in haunted hotels the whole way. I didn’t carry a guidebook — I just found ‘em online. I found a bunch and they were all spooky and creepy. But there was one in San Antonio, and I know it was real. I’ve always been scared of ghosts, and I love scary stories and scary movies. But this was an old whorehouse, where this one ghost whore haunts one specific bedroom. So of course, I stayed there. And in the middle of the night, I felt her touch my whole body as the room got really cold. And the reason I know it was real is because I wasn’t scared — I felt bad for her. I woke up and she was at the foot of the bed, just standing there. And I was sad — there was nothing scary about it. And that was the most intense hotel. And there were others that were just hokey. But that whorehouse in San Antonio was the only really legit one.
 
SHOCKHOUND: Well, you do seem to have a weird magnetic energy about you. Maybe you attract strange experiences.
 
KE$HA: Well, obviously we’re all made of energy. And if I just exude positivity and I’m not a jealous cunt, and I’m super-positive and happy to everybody else, I think that has a magnetic effect. So I just try to be happy for everybody and not jealous, not crazy. People are attracted to the positive — they’re not attracted to shit-talking.
 
SHOCKHOUND: One of your songs deals with that subject, right? “Backstabber”?
 
KE$HA: Backstabbers. Fucking little backstabbers. Yeah, and she was a real person. She was this cunt, we were friends, and she didn’t have a car so I always drove her around. But she was just talking shit — she was saying that I was like blowing some guy that I’d never even kissed. So I was like, "Why are you saying that when I drive you around everywhere?" And then after I wrote that song, we went to party and the next morning I woke up and she’s gone, my purse is gone, my car’s gone. She stole my car. And I called her and said, “Dude! Where’d you go?” And she’s like, “Oh, I had to go to work.” In my car!
 
SHOCKHOUND: You sure are liberal with the dreaded C word!
 
KE$HA: Oh yeah — I spent a lotta time in London, where they say it all the time.
 
SHOCKHOUND: So people basically suck, then?
 
KE$HA: No! People are magnificent! But then you get the…the…whaddaya call the egg that’s bad?
 
SHOCKHOUND: The bad egg?
 
KE$HA: Yeah! The bad egg! There’s probably a more specific word, but I forget it.
 
SHOCKHOUND: So why the dollar sign in your name?
 
KE$HA: The dollar sign was supposed to just be funny. Because I thought it was ironic that I was on a song that was #1 in 14 countries (Flo Rida’s “Right Round,” her vocal debut), but I literally didn’t have enough money to go out to a real restaurant and eat. I didn’t even have a car. So I just thought it was funny. I have the dollar sign tattooed here on my hand, because that’s where me and all my friends would shake the salt and take our $1 shots of tequila together. Because me and all my friends were beyond broke. And this was my life for the longest time — each payday for four years, I’d walk from my apartment to this restaurant where you could get a $1 shot of tequila, and if you bought a shot you got three tacos, free peanuts and a beer. For a dollar! And if all your friends are there too? What is better than that? Three tacos, a beer and all your friends. There is nothing better than that. So this whole record? I wrote everything on it, and I had fun with it. I just wanna be a ringleader in the battle against people taking themselves so seriously.
 
SHOCKHOUND: There are some brilliant women out there on your same wavelength. Katy Perry, Lady GaGa…
 
KE$HA: I know! And I’m so happy to be in this sea of women with balls. Katy is my friend and I haven’t met Lady GaGa yet, but they see the things the same as I do. You just have to be super-positive about everybody else and their success, so it’s never a jealous thing. I’m not trying to steal anybody’s thunder — I’m just completely stoked that people like my music, and that’s about it. And I’m so stoked that I don’t have to be a waitress on the side anymore while I make music. I’m so lucky.
 
SHOCKHOUND: What was the worst table you ever waited on? Or the worst tip you ever got?
 
KE$HA: Oh, I’ve definitely cried, it’s been so bad. And obviously the worst tip would be no tip. But one time this guy left me his phone number, and I went on a date with him and he ended up being a total creep. So that was the worst tip I ever got. But my mom would never let me just die off. She just said “I’m not paying your rent.” But I had free tacos — I really didn’t need anything else.
 
SHOCKHOUND: Do you shun tacos like the plague now?
 
KE$HA: Are you kidding? I wanna go on a taco-and-beer tour! And the West Coast has got the most amazing tacos. Oh, I’m getting so hungry now it’s making me excited!
 
SHOCKHOUND: And your mom, Pebe Sebert, was a successful singer/songwriter in Nashville, right? So you grew up around showbiz.
 
KE$HA: Well, my mother didn’t birth me onstage. But those are some of my first memories, actually — walking around Van Nuys barefoot, eating popsicles. Or sitting in a guitar case onstage, looking up while my mom was playing a show. She was in a punk band — she even opened for the Chili Peppers — but then she discovered country music and she was instantly successful with that. So we moved to Nashville and never looked back. But her best advice, ever, which I still totally live by, is “Don’t ever take no for an answer.” With anything. If there’s something you want and someone’s told you “No,” give them the finger and do it yourself. This is why I snuck into Prince’s house. This is why I do everything that I do. I haven’t paid for a concert in years! I would just sneak in, walk right in with the band. And people always told me “No, no, no, you’re not gonna be a pop star — it’s a one-in-a-million chance.” And I’m like “Oh yeah? Watch me!’”
 
SHOCKHOUND: Well, you have to believe in yourself, believe that you’re representing a good product.
 
KE$HA: Oh, I know I do. I know I’m the shit. But people need to remember, you can have confidence, it’s true — but you can’t be a douchebag about it.
 
SHOCKHOUND: Did you ever actually come to in a bathtub after a hard-partying night, like in your “TiK ToK” clip?
 
KE$HA: Yeah! Many times! And I actually prefer sleeping in a bathtub, at least to sleeping on the floor. I love the bathtub, just for the curvature of it and how it fits my spine. In fact, the most recent time I was in Vegas, I woke up in a bathtub.
 
SHOCKHOUND: Once the money rolls in, what will you treat yourself to that you never have before?
 
KE$HA: I have lists. Many lists. I want a few things, actually, like more fake fur and fake gold jewelry. I’m all about the fake — it’s never real. I have fake everything! But I’m also a scuba diver, so I’ll definitely treat myself by going to Australia and diving. And do you know the Farallon Islands up here [off the coast of San Francisco]? They have the biggest concentration of great white sharks in the world, even more than Australia. So I really wanna go cage diving, where you go into the cage and the sharks swim around you and have a feeding frenzy. Now that, I would do in a heartbeat!