Mika on his demoNs and overcoming a crisis of confidence

He’s overcome a crisis of confidence to deliver his new album, but beneath the singer's bravado old demons still lurk

by Pete Paphides

Half an hour after singing his current American single Blame It on the Girls on the Letterman show, a showered, dressed-down Mika emerges from the backstage door of the Ed Sullivan Theatre, New York. This, he texted, would be as good a place to meet as any. But it’s not as simple as that. Mika is about 12ft away — and before we meet, he needs to pass through a wall of autograph hunters the only way that the son of an American diplomat knows how — with a little Biro ink and a lot of patience.

A collegiate-looking male fan thrusts a CD of the singer’s recent second album, The Boy Who Knew Too Much, and says: “I bought it yesterday, expecting to hate it. But I’ve already played it three times.” An hour later, in the bar of the Ritz Carlton, by Central Park, this odd compliment still lingers. “Have you ever bought an album expecting to hate it?” Mika muses. “Does that say something about me or about him?”

Mika is almost certainly too self-aware not to know the answer to that question. He may be a guilty pleasure but even critics affronted by that cocksure “Ker-ching!” at the end of Grace Kelly had to concede that the former boy soprano could pen a tune insistent enough to make you want to swiftly swallow the guilt.

For someone so fixed on occupying the mainstream, there remains something fascinatingly inflammatory about Mika. His detractors don’t just dislike him; they loathe him. Seemingly, it was always this way. The last time we met, pre-fame, the former Mica Penniman spoke about the bullying he suffered at the hands of pupils and teachers at his London school.

For some artists, the validation of fans can bring closure on an unhappy childhood. Instead in his pop career Mika seems to have gone out of his way to repeat patterns established in childhood, sometimes inviting open hostility.

His 2007 Glastonbury performance, following Pete Doherty, seemed a recipe for disaster. Dressed in pristine white, he appeared less pop star more human sacrifice to the NME-reading hordes with limitless reserves of mud on hand. However, inviting half-a-dozen friends on stage in animal costumes turned out to be a masterstroke. In Scotland, he even survived the legendarily leery T in the Park. “It’s a tough crowd. We were on after Beth Ditto and the Gossip — and I’m standing at the side of the stage watching her get bottles of p*** thrown at her. And I’m like, ‘If she’s getting this, then what the f*** am I doing here?’ When she came off, she said, ‘You’re about to sing to a bunch of f***ing assholes.’ So I said, ‘Well don’t leave it there. Come out and sing with me’. And she came out and we sang a song together. Finally it stopped. You just have to face people down.”

Having faced other people down for so long, the process of following Life in Cartoon Motion left Mika unsure what he needed to do next. Still living in the basement of his parents’ South Kensington house, he recalls that “it took a long time for me to have fun with the music again”. He did though enjoy some of the extras of new-found stardom. He’s chatted with Madonna (and was struck by “how not-cold she was”) and U2, too. Air stewards have continued to slip him their mobile numbers “at a fairly consistent rate” — and he has continued not replying. New songs were “a long time coming”. He would have liked a little more support from a record company that made him “feel like I hadn’t done well enough”. But he felt that beating the crisis in confidence made him stronger.

“I worked it out for myself,” he says, “I listened to a lot of second albums that were around and asked myself, ‘What is it about these albums? They’re not bad, because they’re quite well recorded. The songs are all right, but they’re not great. They’re just boring. It felt like the singers had taken a couple of steps away from the microphone. It felt like they weren’t as good in bed as they used to be. It felt like they didn’t get as drunk as they would have before. They felt cautious. In the end, I thought, you know what, I might as well have a f***ing good time, otherwise I’ll kill myself.”

The subsequent decision to throw caution to the wind affected both Mika’s creative and personal lives. By addressing the latter on Rain, he effectively reignited the former. “How was I feeling the day I wrote that? I was furious with the person I was going out with.” What had they done? “Nothing. That was the problem.”

What did he want them to do? “Embarrass me. Make me happy at the risk of making me totally miserable ... So I wrote this nasty little nursery rhyme — and then I thought, wouldn’t it be funny to put it to a dance beat, because that would empower it.”

Mika and this partner are no longer together. “We went out for over 18 months,” he says, with a curt smile. Their identity and gender is off-limits. In the past, he has said that “in order to survive”, he has “shut up different parts of life, and that’s one of them” but today he seems happy to talk about his sex life. Referring to the endorphin-surge disco of 2007’s Love Today, he reveals that the song came fully formed “after the first time I had sleepy with somebody and actually loved it”. Later, he cryptically tells me that he “emotionally killed a man”. When, exactly? “It was three weeks ago.” Someone who declared some kind of interest? He laughs. “It was complicated. Suffice to say that I am now a murderer.”

He says he sometimes worries that he might overstate what an unhappy childhood he had, but once in a while he will refer to some hitherto unaired incident with the blithe air of someone who forgets how startling it might sound.

Predating his family’s move from Paris to London, he would often be found at night wandering the streets in his pyjamas. “The sleepwalking problem was pretty serious. It coincided with my Nostradamus obsession. I was convinced we were all going to die in some kind of gas-mask, rubbish-bag-wearing world in some concrete palace. I was once found by garbage men in Paris. I was taken home in a dustcart.”

By consciously fashioning a parallel world in his waking hours, his unconscious mind’s need to do the same has dissipated. When Mika was trying to secure a record deal, any music he sent to record companies came with folders full of painted scenes — conceived by Mika and his sister — depicting the characters in songs such as Lollipop and the sexually confused protagonist of Billy Brown. “My record company thought I was insane, because I was drawing characters saying: ‘This is what the album’s gonna look like.’ They were like: ‘You haven’t chosen a producer yet’. ” It’s a theme continued by Dr John, One Foot Boy and the sexual ambiguity of Toy Boy on the new album. All, he says, are facets of his “adolescent self”.

If you need further evidence that the music industry is in hard times, Mika’s tour plans make sobering reading. Having struggled to fund his stage sets, he has spent the days before our meeting holed up in Toronto, assisted by a small army of fans — whom he paid “in pizza” — assembling the 120-odd planets and space detritus to appear on stage. “It’s been fantastic,” he says. “I’m an astronaut. I die at the beginning of the show. This is all explained by my family — which is my band — in this 1950s-style sitting room. They’re watching I Love Lucy, and suddenly this news broadcast interrupts the show. It’s Sir Ian McKellen reporting as my rocket advances towards the Moon, only to explode.”

It doesn’t seem to occur to him that the image of him painting polystyrene planets for his live show might seem odd to some. And yet, he is too much of a control freak to have it any other way. “One way or another, this is what I’d be doing anyway. I’d be living out my own delusions of grandeur, drawing comics, imagining that people might read them one day.”

Mika, of course, doesn’t have to wait for posterity to be famous. I show him the time. Letterman airs in half an hour. But he won't be watching. He is due on the tour bus for the overnight trip to Boston. “Why don’t you come with us?” he asks, wrapping a greatcoat around his wiry frame. “We’ll sort out your flight.” I mutter something about family commitments. He says it’ll be fun. I don’t doubt it will be, but still ... “I know,” he says, shooting a look that sits square between empathy and pity. “You sound like one of my band.”

Rain is out on Monday (Universal Island); Mika’s UK tour starts at Sheffield Academy (mikasounds.com) on Feb 18

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article6923790.ece

Wow!

Thanks Deb!

This article is very interesting.

I have to go back & read it again.

Lovely pic, t4p deb

the interview is great and full of thngs I personally had never heard before. thanks a lot for posting.

is it only me who thinks he looks like tim curry in RHPS in the article photo..?

That was lovely. One of my favourite interviews now!

“How was I feeling the day I wrote that? I was furious with the person I was going out with.” What had they done? “Nothing. That was the problem.”

owww.

Thanks for posting

Thank you for posting!

I loved to read it although it was a challenge to understand!

Quite...strange.

Mika had a bit of a weird teenhood.

T4P though...

That was lovely. One of my favourite interviews now!

 

“How was I feeling the day I wrote that? I was furious with the person I was going out with.” What had they done? “Nothing. That was the problem.”

 

owww.

that basically means he was expecting to get hurt so he was pushing and challenging this person to see if they'd hurt him. That sounds psychologically crazy but it makes sense.

That's full of new bits. T4P deb

What a fascinating interview! Will need to read this one again later, when I can really pay attention.

LOL I've just read it over again:

"after the first time I had sleepy with somebody..." :roftl:

that basically means he was expecting to get hurt so he was pushing and challenging this person to see if they'd hurt him. That sounds psychologically crazy but it makes sense.

Yes it does make sense

O...k... That was one weird interview. Oh well, I like the fact he does what he feels like doing and he's not hiding it.

But gosh, that was really interesting and sort of psychotic... I'll need some time to fully understand it.

Wow! Thanks for posting!

Loved reading it. A lot of new information included

Just as a frame of reference, this writer has written a lot of nice things about

Mika in the past:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/cd_reviews/article1311851.ece

So will this be in The Times tomorrow?

thanx for posting! really lots of new and interesting information! *reads again*

He’s overcome a crisis of confidence to deliver his new album, but beneath the singer's bravado old demons still lurk

 

by Pete Paphides

 

 

Half an hour after singing his current American single Blame It on the Girls on the Letterman show, a showered, dressed-down Mika emerges from the backstage door of the Ed Sullivan Theatre, New York. This, he texted, would be as good a place to meet as any. But it’s not as simple as that. Mika is about 12ft away — and before we meet, he needs to pass through a wall of autograph hunters the only way that the son of an American diplomat knows how — with a little Biro ink and a lot of patience.

 

A collegiate-looking male fan thrusts a CD of the singer’s recent second album, The Boy Who Knew Too Much, and says: “I bought it yesterday, expecting to hate it. But I’ve already played it three times.” An hour later, in the bar of the Ritz Carlton, by Central Park, this odd compliment still lingers. “Have you ever bought an album expecting to hate it?” Mika muses. “Does that say something about me or about him?”

 

Mika is almost certainly too self-aware not to know the answer to that question. He may be a guilty pleasure but even critics affronted by that cocksure “Ker-ching!” at the end of Grace Kelly had to concede that the former boy soprano could pen a tune insistent enough to make you want to swiftly swallow the guilt.

 

For someone so fixed on occupying the mainstream, there remains something fascinatingly inflammatory about Mika. His detractors don’t just dislike him; they loathe him. Seemingly, it was always this way. The last time we met, pre-fame, the former Mica Penniman spoke about the bullying he suffered at the hands of pupils and teachers at his London school.

 

For some artists, the validation of fans can bring closure on an unhappy childhood. Instead in his pop career Mika seems to have gone out of his way to repeat patterns established in childhood, sometimes inviting open hostility.

 

His 2007 Glastonbury performance, following Pete Doherty, seemed a recipe for disaster. Dressed in pristine white, he appeared less pop star more human sacrifice to the NME-reading hordes with limitless reserves of mud on hand. However, inviting half-a-dozen friends on stage in animal costumes turned out to be a masterstroke. In Scotland, he even survived the legendarily leery T in the Park. “It’s a tough crowd. We were on after Beth Ditto and the Gossip — and I’m standing at the side of the stage watching her get bottles of p*** thrown at her. And I’m like, ‘If she’s getting this, then what the f*** am I doing here?’ When she came off, she said, ‘You’re about to sing to a bunch of f***ing assholes.’ So I said, ‘Well don’t leave it there. Come out and sing with me’. And she came out and we sang a song together. Finally it stopped. You just have to face people down.”

 

Having faced other people down for so long, the process of following Life in Cartoon Motion left Mika unsure what he needed to do next. Still living in the basement of his parents’ South Kensington house, he recalls that “it took a long time for me to have fun with the music again”. He did though enjoy some of the extras of new-found stardom. He’s chatted with Madonna (and was struck by “how not-cold she was”) and U2, too. Air stewards have continued to slip him their mobile numbers “at a fairly consistent rate” — and he has continued not replying. New songs were “a long time coming”. He would have liked a little more support from a record company that made him “feel like I hadn’t done well enough”. But he felt that beating the crisis in confidence made him stronger.

 

“I worked it out for myself,” he says, “I listened to a lot of second albums that were around and asked myself, ‘What is it about these albums? They’re not bad, because they’re quite well recorded. The songs are all right, but they’re not great. They’re just boring. It felt like the singers had taken a couple of steps away from the microphone. It felt like they weren’t as good in bed as they used to be. It felt like they didn’t get as drunk as they would have before. They felt cautious. In the end, I thought, you know what, I might as well have a f***ing good time, otherwise I’ll kill myself.”

 

The subsequent decision to throw caution to the wind affected both Mika’s creative and personal lives. By addressing the latter on Rain, he effectively reignited the former. “How was I feeling the day I wrote that? I was furious with the person I was going out with.” What had they done? “Nothing. That was the problem.”

 

What did he want them to do? “Embarrass me. Make me happy at the risk of making me totally miserable ... So I wrote this nasty little nursery rhyme — and then I thought, wouldn’t it be funny to put it to a dance beat, because that would empower it.”

 

Mika and this partner are no longer together. “We went out for over 18 months,” he says, with a curt smile. Their identity and gender is off-limits. In the past, he has said that “in order to survive”, he has “shut up different parts of life, and that’s one of them” but today he seems happy to talk about his sex life. Referring to the endorphin-surge disco of 2007’s Love Today, he reveals that the song came fully formed “after the first time I had sleepy with somebody and actually loved it”. Later, he cryptically tells me that he “emotionally killed a man”. When, exactly? “It was three weeks ago.” Someone who declared some kind of interest? He laughs. “It was complicated. Suffice to say that I am now a murderer.”

 

He says he sometimes worries that he might overstate what an unhappy childhood he had, but once in a while he will refer to some hitherto unaired incident with the blithe air of someone who forgets how startling it might sound.

 

Predating his family’s move from Paris to London, he would often be found at night wandering the streets in his pyjamas. “The sleepwalking problem was pretty serious. It coincided with my Nostradamus obsession. I was convinced we were all going to die in some kind of gas-mask, rubbish-bag-wearing world in some concrete palace. I was once found by garbage men in Paris. I was taken home in a dustcart.”

 

By consciously fashioning a parallel world in his waking hours, his unconscious mind’s need to do the same has dissipated. When Mika was trying to secure a record deal, any music he sent to record companies came with folders full of painted scenes — conceived by Mika and his sister — depicting the characters in songs such as Lollipop and the sexually confused protagonist of Billy Brown. “My record company thought I was insane, because I was drawing characters saying: ‘This is what the album’s gonna look like.’ They were like: ‘You haven’t chosen a producer yet’. ” It’s a theme continued by Dr John, One Foot Boy and the sexual ambiguity of Toy Boy on the new album. All, he says, are facets of his “adolescent self”.

 

If you need further evidence that the music industry is in hard times, Mika’s tour plans make sobering reading.

 

Having struggled to fund his stage sets, he has spent the days before our meeting holed up in Toronto, assisted by a small army of fans — whom he paid “in pizza” — assembling the 120-odd planets and space detritus to appear on stage. “It’s been fantastic,” he says. “I’m an astronaut. I die at the beginning of the show. This is all explained by my family — which is my band — in this 1950s-style sitting room. They’re watching I Love Lucy, and suddenly this news broadcast interrupts the show. It’s Sir Ian McKellen reporting as my rocket advances towards the Moon, only to explode.”

 

It doesn’t seem to occur to him that the image of him painting polystyrene planets for his live show might seem odd to some. And yet, he is too much of a control freak to have it any other way. “One way or another, this is what I’d be doing anyway. I’d be living out my own delusions of grandeur, drawing comics, imagining that people might read them one day.”

 

Mika, of course, doesn’t have to wait for posterity to be famous. I show him the time. Letterman airs in half an hour. But he won't be watching. He is due on the tour bus for the overnight trip to Boston. “Why don’t you come with us?” he asks, wrapping a greatcoat around his wiry frame. “We’ll sort out your flight.” I mutter something about family commitments. He says it’ll be fun. I don’t doubt it will be, but still ... “I know,” he says, shooting a look that sits square between empathy and pity. “You sound like one of my band.”

 

Rain is out on Monday (Universal Island); Mika’s UK tour starts at Sheffield Academy (mikasounds.com) on Feb 18

 

 

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article6923790.ece

 

Holy flipping feck. I never thought that this would happen

Thanks for posting Deb, very interesting interview

He’s overcome a crisis of confidence to deliver his new album, but beneath the singer's bravado old demons still lurk

 

by Pete Paphides

 

Having faced other people down for so long, the process of following Life in Cartoon Motion left Mika unsure what he needed to do next. Still living in the basement of his parents’ South Kensington house, he recalls that “it took a long time for me to have fun with the music again”. He did though enjoy some of the extras of new-found stardom. He’s chatted with Madonna (and was struck by “how not-cold she was”) and U2, too. Air stewards have continued to slip him their mobile numbers “at a fairly consistent rate” — and he has continued not replying. New songs were “a long time coming”. He would have liked a little more support from a record company that made him “feel like I hadn’t done well enough”. But he felt that beating the crisis in confidence made him stronger.

 

“I worked it out for myself,” he says, “I listened to a lot of second albums that were around and asked myself, ‘What is it about these albums? They’re not bad, because they’re quite well recorded. The songs are all right, but they’re not great. They’re just boring. It felt like the singers had taken a couple of steps away from the microphone. It felt like they weren’t as good in bed as they used to be. It felt like they didn’t get as drunk as they would have before. They felt cautious. In the end, I thought, you know what, I might as well have a f***ing good time, otherwise I’ll kill myself.”

 

Having struggled to fund his stage sets, he has spent the days before our meeting holed up in Toronto, assisted by a small army of fans — whom he paid “in pizza” — assembling the 120-odd planets and space detritus to appear on stage.

 

It doesn’t seem to occur to him that the image of him painting polystyrene planets for his live show might seem odd to some. And yet, he is too much of a control freak to have it any other way. “One way or another, this is what I’d be doing anyway. I’d be living out my own delusions of grandeur, drawing comics, imagining that people might read them one day.”

 

Mika, of course, doesn’t have to wait for posterity to be famous. I show him the time. Letterman airs in half an hour. But he won't be watching. He is due on the tour bus for the overnight trip to Boston. “Why don’t you come with us?” he asks, wrapping a greatcoat around his wiry frame. “We’ll sort out your flight.” I mutter something about family commitments. He says it’ll be fun. I don’t doubt it will be, but still ... “I know,” he says, shooting a look that sits square between empathy and pity. “You sound like one of my band.”

I just love all the articles & reviews about Mika this time around with TBWKTM.

I am finding Mika's candidness & strange outlook on things quite fascinating.

Mika you are a piece of work!

I say in the best way possible. :roftl:

that basically means he was expecting to get hurt so he was pushing and challenging this person to see if they'd hurt him. That sounds psychologically crazy but it makes sense.

Or did he just want to "feel" again - something, anything??

I think it was a bit more complicated than Mika is saying.

Interesting to say the least.

mika is revealing so much

thanks for posting, very interesting....

Just as a frame of reference, this writer has written a lot of nice things about

Mika in the past:

 

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/cd_reviews/article1311851.ece

Absolutely, as it seems he has been following Mika for quite a while!

And only nice things to say, thank you for pointing it out, it was several interesting articles!

Or did he just want to "feel" again - something, anything??

I think it was a bit more complicated than Mika is saying.

Interesting to say the least.

To be honest it was something I learned in Counselling. People have different reactions to things, obviously, but I think my answer sounds plausible, with people bullying him and stuff. Back then he probably wasn't expecting to be treated nicely by others a lot and when they did, he just found weird and probably couldn't believe it and so tried to sabotage it before they hurt him first.

People can be so complex

Obviously that's just my way of seeing it, doesn't mean it's right.