At the end of 2021, Katy Perry and Alesso joined Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 to share their new collaborative single “When I’m Gone”. Katy discusses the origin of the collaboration, the possibility of more new music on the way, her upcoming Las Vegas residency, and previews what fans can expect from the setlist. Alesso details his experience of working with Katy, how his writing process has adapted without festivals, and more. 
Katy Perry Tells Apple Music About The Origin of “When I’m Gone”…
 
Alesso actually brought me the framework of this song about a year, maybe a year and a half ago. I was like, “Well, I’m not ready.” Or a year ago. “I’m not ready to go into a new album cycle, where I’m just going bam, bam, bam, but preparing for Vegas, which is a huge undertaking… I mean that this show is larger than life literally. I have a 20-foot toilet. Don’t ask, but it’s so big and so wild that we wanted to inject some new blood into it. I was like, I have the perfect timing to put out a dance song that is through and through just so much fun and up, up, up. Then also with the music video that’s coming, I’m just going for it. I’ve been in the dance studio for weeks. Mama can’t just be pushing the pram. She’s got to push the bam.
 
Katy Perry Tells Apple Music About Her Las Vegas Residency and Previews The Setlist…
 
The show is an accumulation of me. Especially, you have to really know your audience in Vegas. It’s not always going to be the Katy Cat. It’s going to be the drunk bachelorette gal and her 12 friends. It’s going to be someone that just turned 21. It’s going to be someone that wants to show off and yada yada. They’re going to be like, “Well, let’s see the best show in Vegas.” By the looks of the pictures from Play, you’re going to be like, “This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. We have to go and see it IRL.” The set, when I put it together, literally, I asked my team… I mean, we all huddled together, and we were like, “Well, what’s my top 20 songs on Apple Music?” There’s the set. There’s the set. Some of those… We’re going to take some of those top songs. And we’re going to take the remix version of those songs. We’re just going to weave them in.So like a third of the set is all remixes that people love… But I’m building it so it can sustain for as long as people want it. That’s what I’m doing. I’m been in it for over a year on Play. I’m just going to do what the people want and listen to their feedback and just be an entertainer, like true sense of the word, especially when you’re going to Vegas.It’s really about being an entertainer in show business.
 
Katy Perry Tells Apple Music About The Possibility For More New Music On The Way…
 
I’m always writing. I’ve never stopped. I have a big chunk of songs and stuff, but I think that I can’t make any more plans than putting out WIG and Play right now. I think that if people like the dance stuff, I’d be willing to serve up more of that, but I also really want to go into an evolved space musically and start a new era. That’s going to be starkly different, but I think duality is important.
 
Alesso Tells Apple Music About The Musical Origins of “When I’m Gone”…
 
It started for me working with two other incredible songwriters, and Katy heard of it and she loved it, I guess. We met up in LA and then just vibed out to the song and started talking about it, doing some changes and making it more suitable for her and making it her song. Then a year later, here we are.
 
Alesso Tells Apple Music About Collaboration with Katy Perry…
 
…obviously it was a great honor, at first. I’m so happy she wanted to do this with me. Obviously, she has an incredible vocal producer that we got a lot of good help from that knows her voice. I couldn’t really f**k it up, so shout out to him, Barts, for helping us. Made it a lot easier for me. But then when I got to vocals, I love my studio here. It’s really built for me to achieve whatever I want to achieve because I travel everywhere and I always love to finish records here. I’m so glad I got to do that because it made it a lot easier and it was really fun working with her vocals, so many awesome stems… I love when artists are getting more involved and have pointers because it’s a collab, this. It’s not just should be me doing the song. I have to say Katy was definitely a very perfectionist, and I love that. I didn’t mind it at all. I just thought it was fine. “Oh, you want to change that? Oh, that’s cool. Let’s work on that. Send it back. This sucks. Can you change this? Okay. That was awesome. Let’s bring that back.” I just love that. So no problems for me.
 
Alesso Tells Apple Music About Working on New Music Without Being Able To Test Out Material With Festival Audiences…
 
Honestly, I don’t even know what works anymore because usually I could test it out when I was at festivals and stuff. So definitely trying to create in my head a little bit like when I was younger, when I didn’t have any shows. I wasn’t getting booked yet, and I would just imagine what I think people would like. There are some shows here and there. I haven’t tested this one out yet, so I’m really excited for that obviously.