Interview: T-Pain's Stripper Secrets

Earlier this week, we spoke with the best, most robotic R&B hook man alive, T-Pain, about his upcoming album, THR33 Ringz. To find out who will guest on the record and some of the singer's studio superstitions, you'll have to read Blender's August issue. But if you want to know about his secret to avoiding writer's block and his hatred of salads, check out these choice bits from our conversation below:

T-Pain on writer's block ...

Blender: You come out with songs and hooks non-stop, do you ever suffer from writer's block?
T-Pain: Nah, I don't usually write. When you try to make it all clever and shit you get stuck. You say the most clever things when you don't think about it.

On strippers ...

B: You write a lot of songs about strippers but it seems like you really want to help them out instead of just gawk at them ...
T: I do. I've been to a lot of strip clubs and I've heard a lot of life stories. It's saddening. This one girl showed me a bunch of pictures of her kids and told me how she really wanted to be with them but she couldn't because she can only strip out of town because everyone in her city knows her.

B: How do you get to the point with a stripper where they start to open up to you like that?
T: When you tell 'em you don't really want a dance they're like, What's wrong with you?! And I'll say, I'm tired. And they're like, You think you're tired — check this out. They start pullin' out cell phones and pictures and stuff. It gets pretty stupid.

B: Do you ever wish you never started talking to them in the first place?
T: Nah, it's actually interesting to me. I can get more songs like that, too.

B: You're like a journalist.
T: Yeah, exactly.

On fingerstaches ...

B: I saw you showing off your fingerstache on BET recently. Is that catching on within the hip-hop community? Is Lil Wayne getting a fingerstache now?
T: No! I don't think anybody else is going to do that. Birdman laughs at me every time he sees it, he just thinks it's incredibly stupid. It hurt like crap, but it's so worth it. Actually, it's gone now because tattoos only go seven skin layers deep and the skin in between your fingers is constantly chipping away. It's kinda hard to keep a tatto on your hands.

B: So you wouldn't try to get the fingerstache redone?
T: Nope, that was it.

On PMS ...

B: You're known for touching on sensitive subject matter in your songs, any controversial new tracks?
T: I got a song called "One of These" about girls when they get their periods and they kinda switch up on you. It's pretty bad.

B: What's the worst experience you've had with that sort of thing?
T: I got kicked out of a bed. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't do anything. There was a lot of crying — I don't know what happened.

B: Have you ever been hit by a woman?
T: Nah, never got hit, trust me.

On food ...

B: What do you eat while recording?
T: Right now I'm on a diet so I let my bodyguard pick stuff.

B: So, like, salads?
T: [incredulous] Not so much salads. Gotta be some kind of meat and hot. I don't do cold.

B: Sandwiches?
T: Yeah, salmon or some kind of crazily cooked chicken.

On getting his chain stolen ...

B: Any story songs on the new record?
T: There's one called "Havoc." It's a true story about when I got my chain snatched in New York the night before my first album dropped. Somebody snuck a gun in the club and stuck it in my stomach, but I wasn't going to give my chain up — it was my first chain. He pushed me back and as I was fallin' he snatched the chain and ran out the club. It was pretty weird. It's such an in-depth story, it's like a 5 minute song.

B: Did you find the chain on eBay?
T: Nah. We found it, though. He stole it to sell back to me ... but I didn't buy it back.

B: Is that guy still alive?
T: [ominously] No, he's not alive.