Five years ago, Brentwood High School senior Kesha Sebert was on track to graduate with honors and Ivy League prospects. She was also named “Most Individualistic” in her class for the school yearbook’s senior superlatives.

Sebert proved that she deserved that title when she dropped out of school in her senior year to pursue a career in pop music in Los Angeles.

Today, she’s better known as Ke$ha, the party-loving 22-year-old that famously raps about brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in her dance-pop hit “TiK ToK.”The runaway success of that tune (at press time, it boasted a four-week stint atop Billboard’s Hot 100 chart) led Ke$ha’s first album, Animal, to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 last week. So far, Sebert’s career has gone remarkably according to plan — give or take a few years of uncertainty between school and superstardom.

“I always knew (music) was what I was going to do,” she says, calling from New York, where she’s just taped a performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. “When I was like 5 years old, people would be like, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I was like, ‘I wanna be a rock star. Yeah!’”

That dream was still intact while she attended Brentwood High. Former classmate Marelle Bordenet says Sebert would occasionally bring in demo CDs and pictures from recent photo shoots to show, but not show off, in class.

“We always thought it was really cool,” Bordenet says. “We never thought, ‘Oh, this will definitely happen,’ because how many people want to be singers? I guess we never really thought she’d be huge one day.”

‘The right hands’
Even then, Sebert herself was pretty set on it definitely happening.

“Music was the only plan that she had for herself,” says former classmate Sarah Almuhairi, who kept in touch with the singer for a few years after high school. “She wasn’t like, ‘I’m going to try.’ It was, ‘I’m going to do this.’”

Before dropping out, Sebert had been similarly headstrong as a student. She was enrolled in the International Baccalaureate, planned to attend Barnard College in New York City and would spend evenings sitting in on Belmont University courses.

“I was, like, super into learning and stuff,” Sebert says, “but then my mom sent a demo to a friend that works at BMI, and somehow, that got into the right hands.”

Her mother is Pebe Sebert, a Nashville songwriter who penned Dolly Parton’s 1980 hit “Old Flames Can’t Hold a Candle to You.” The “right hands” were those of Max Martin and Dr. Luke — two powerhouse producers and songwriters responsible for hits by Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson and Katy Perry.

Sebert moved to Los Angeles to work with the pair, and spent the next several years writing songs and singing background vocals for other artists.

Martin and Luke initially had their hands full, producing massive hits for the likes of Perry, Clarkson and Avril Lavigne while Sebert sat on the sidelines. Before “TiK ToK,” the closest Sebert came to fame was an un-credited appearance on Flo Rida’s smash “Right Round.”

“I would just get antsy and impatient, but really, timing is everything,” she says. “You have to make sure that it’s right. I’m glad, obviously, that it took so long to craft it, because now I have a record that I’m insanely proud of, and (I) wrote every song on it, and really defined a sound that I don’t think anyone else is really rocking right now. I didn’t want to just come out with another record. I wanted to come out with a record that was going to make people stop in their tracks and notice.”

‘An honest record’
She and her producers found a winning angle with Animal. Album tracks “Your Love is My Drug,” “Hungover” and “Party At a Rich Dude’s House” make it clear that Ke$ha isn’t shying away from getting painted as an excess-loving partygoer. At this point, at least, she seems unconcerned with shaking off the image in the future.

“I definitely drink some whiskey now and again, but I definitely don’t care what people perceive me as, because I know I’m an artist, and I know I’m also a 22-year-old girl that goes out and has fun with a bunch of hot friends, and I write about it,” she says. “I don’t apologize for it. People can take it for what they will, but (Animal) is just an honest record.”

Former classmate Bordenet says that Sebert’s unapologetic draw toward pop was evident in her early demos, though the two had bonded initially over similar tastes in indie rock.

“I just thought that was so strange because she’s such a different type of person, and you wouldn’t expect her to (make pop music),” Bordenet says. “Maybe that’s why she’s more successful at it than most people.”

Underneath the glittery makeup and club-ready wardrobe that now defines Ke$ha, Almuhairi says she still sees the girl she knew in Brentwood.

“She wasn’t this girl who somehow got fed into the L.A. pop music factory and they branded her and gave her an image. I’m 100 percent confident that what you see on TV and hear on the radio is her own doing.”

There may have been hints of a wild side during the Baccalaureate days, as well.

“I think she knows when and where to get into trouble,” Bordenet says. “She did in high school, at least.”

Source: Tennessean

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