LOS ANGELES — There’s one place left on Earth where Katy Perry can still be considered a dark horse: The Grammy Awards.
The Billboard chart-topping, Super Bowl-conquering pop star, who will perform at Sunday’s Grammys, has been shut out by the Recording Academy in 11 previous nominations. She’s got two more nods this year and said it’d be “so amazing and so funny” to win her first Grammy for “Dark Horse,” featuring rapper Juicy J, a song that’s outside her traditional sunny soundscape.
“When I made that record, it was not serious. Then it turned into like a thing,” Perry said. “At the core of it, my music is very pop and bright. And ‘Dark Horse’ is like a little bit darker and trappier and just a different lane.”
Perry is nominated in the pop duo/group performance category for “Dark Horse” and in the pop vocal album category for her fourth studio album, “Prism,” released in October 2013. She’s been busy since its release with a world tour — 108 shows so far — that continues in Europe and Asia after another performance Sunday at the Grammys.
Perry said she is regularly jotting down ideas for new music while touring, but plans to take time off after her final leg to get out of her “boring” touring bubble and craft songs about “real-life experiences.” Success — nine No. 1 singles on Billboard’s Hot 100 — has bred a degree of restlessness.
“It’s important for me to maybe start reinventing myself. I can’t keep topping myself because I’ll just combust at some point,” Perry said.
Perry hasn’t been able to out climb the criticism that she’s among pop’s queens of cultural appropriation, blithely borrowing from nonwhite imagery in her videos and performances in ways that have rankled some observers. Perry makes it clear she’s been listening.
“I don’t think that one person is allowed to play one certain type of instrument. But there have been some conversations that I’ve been involved in that I’ve learned some things along the way. That’s all I can say. And my intent was always pure, but I can get smarter about things in the future.”
Despite Perry’s globe-spanning tour, there’s one stage to which she hasn’t yet been invited: the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in her home state of California every April. She considers herself a “mascot” of the sand-blasted desert event after repeat trips as a fan.
“I would love to (perform there) because it would feel so full circle. I’ve gone so many years and seen all the acts,” Perry said.
Ever self-aware, the 30-year-old laughs at the prospect of becoming one of the fest’s famed nostalgia acts.
“We’ll see. It’s probably going to be about the type of record I make, or it would be when I would come back at 45, maybe.”
