It’s hard to think of a side of the music industry Linda Perry hasn’t seen; from playing out of a coffee bar in San Francisco to producing music to having her own VH1 reality show. It’s a career path some might call unstable, even with all of her successes.

“I’ve lived out in a park sleeping on the grass with no place to go, I’ve not eaten, I’ve been there,” says Perry. “There’s nothing you could do to me, nothing you could take away from me that would make me feel like I wasn’t going to be all right. I would just start all over again.”

But even when she’s had success, Perry doesn’t feel she’s actually tasted it.

“Honestly, I don’t feel ever very successful because I haven’t had a hit in a while, because I don’t search for them,” Perry says. “To be where I am now, I love it — I love writing songs, but I don’t want to write the songs everyone else is asking me to write. I’m waiting for when people want the real thing again, and that’s when you’ll start hearing my hits again.”

Part of the reason music has become so big, she says, is because of the business that drives a sort of endless cycle.

“Things get greedy, music gets s***ty, movies start losing the plot, we complain, independents show up, there’s going to be a girl who’s going to sell a million records out of the trunk of her car, you know what I mean?” she says. “And then the next time it’ll be even bigger.”