KiteKat Posted June 28, 2007 Share Posted June 28, 2007 from Arjan Writes- nothing special in fact..just well known stuff... ( been waiting for it in hope of smth new... ) Who would have thought? Mika hit town today and we made arrangements to meet up before his show. We sat down in his dressing room and hung out until he had to do his sound check. And if I may vent for a moment, he looked totally cute with his dark eyes and his big white smile. (I forgot how tall he is. I measure 6'3 and he is even taller than I am!) Mika was a bit tired though and that should come as no surprise. He has been jetting around to globe for the last few months to promote his music. Most of his life these days takes place at 33.000ft up in the air. We talked about the phenomenal global success of "Grace Kelly" and his album, the diversity of his growing fan base, feeling like an outcast and his new hobby of collecting airline toothpaste. Things got a bit more serious when I asked about his recent OUT cover that has stirred up mixed emotions. It truly seemed to bother him that it is creating such a "divide" among his gay fans. He is extremely grateful for getting support from the gay media. He is still getting used to becoming a celebrity and the public scrutiny that goes along with it. Interview itself: British pop phenom Mika, 23, is celebrating chart success around the world with his debut single "Grace Kelly." From Hong Kong to Berlin, and from Tokyo to New York, people are raving about his debut album "Life In Cartoon Motion" that is packed with sugar-sweet, frivolous and ultra-catchy pop tunes. But even though Mika's music appears to be all about fun, the Lebanese-born singer doesn't shy away from discussing more serious topics in his songs. Take for example, "Billy Brown," which is about a married man falling in love with another man, or "Big Girl," which is about the beauty of plus-sized women. Pictured on the cover of OUT Magazine this month, Mika has kept mum about his personal life. He refuses to disclose his sexuality and rather lets his music speaks for itself. This has sparked a controversy among bloggers and fans about whether he has a duty to be more forward as a public role model or has a right to maintain his privacy regardless of his fame. After meeting Mika late 2006, Arjan met up again with the singer recently during his U.S. tour to talk about his global success, feeling like an outcast and the media's fascination with his sexuality. If you're not familiar with the rising star that is Mika, you can download "Relax (Take It Easy)" totally guilt-free here. What is your life like now that "Grace Kelly" is topping the charts all over the world? I live like a gypsy! A slightly glamorous gypsy, but not always glamorous believe me. Are you surprised by the extent of the success? Do you have to pinch yourself every five minutes? "Grace Kelly" is a powerful song to have as a single, but what is most exciting for me is how the album as a body of work is connecting with so many people in so many different countries around the world. It feels amazing. It is completely surprising and feels very unreal. It hasn't really sunk in yet. It is very hard to sink in when you're at 30,000 ft eighty percent of the time. Have any particularly unusual things happened to you in your trips around the world? It is really hard for me to point one, single thing out. My life has been unusual from the age of eleven. I have been lucky enough to have had a quite abnormal life for the majority of my growing up years. Does that make me jaded? Perhaps. No, because I'm not. I'm excited about getting a brand-new brand of toothpaste in a little goody bag when I fly. I love it. I collect them now. Do you like celebrity and fame? No. That's not important to me. Buying coffee and getting recognized most certainly doesn't make my world spin. It does feel that I've been doing this for a while. I started singing when I was eleven. I've always had such a hard time in every aspect of my life, from academic work, to at home, to the financial situation with the family and moving around all the time. I really got serious about music with my Russian coach. My first gig was at eleven at the Royal Opera House and since then I have been traveling most of my time even when I was in school doing jobs all around Europe. So it does feel I have been doing this for quite a while. But of course it looks like an overnight success even though it was 12 years in the making. What I am getting at is that what I do hasn't changed, only the things around me have changed. I saw you perform at Coachella and I was impressed that you were able to get die-hard rock fans to bounce to "Grace Kelly." Your music touches all kinds of different people. You're right. I get 16-year-old goths, drunk 22-year-old pill-poppers, hyperactive 7-year-olds and 40-year-old musos. So what is it about your music that has this mass appeal? Have you figured it out yet? It is honest. You can call it pop; you can call it rock; you can call it dance-induced organic versions of pop with influences from the '70s and the '90s. You can try to write a doctorate about it and you would be wasting your time. At the end of the day, it is just honest credible music that takes a serious approach to put things across in the most empowering and accessible way and that's what good pop music is. In your lyrics, you often choose the side of the outsider or the outcast. Absolutely. I have been an outsider myself my entire life. I never was an outsider by choice. I was made to be the outsider -- like most people are. I considered myself somebody that was made to watch because I couldn't join in. What I write about lyrically is about normality. It is funny to me that the mundane or the everyday in a pop song suddenly seems very strange to people. So many things that are successful nowadays, especially in hip hop music, have so much to do with abnormal excess, materialism and superficialities that really you don't come across apart from in Hollywood. As soon as you start talking about the everyday or a character that you come across while going to the supermarket then that suddenly seems strange. So yeah, I suppose I take the normal -- I take the mundane; I take a character who is often overlooked. Like the girls in "Big Girl." I put them on a fantastical pillar and paint a multi-colored background and I stick a crown on their head, even when it is for three and a half minutes. Why did you feel like an outsider? As a child and teenager, I was completely rejected at school up until the age of 18. For every reason, first I was too short and fat, then I was too tall and skinny, my voice was too high, I liked music, I collect toys, I have a mother who is overweight, I supposedly had big hips. Everything. Some kids have trouble and some kids don't. I ended being the kid having trouble. So I had to deal with a lot of bullying and that obviously made me an outcast. Did it make you stronger? It gave me perspective. If it did empower me in any way that is certainly not to the credit of the bullies. That would only be to the credit of the family that I come from. We're quite a tough Lebanese matriarchal family. Bullies don't make you strong, they just destroy you. You just have to resist it. What is people's fascination with your sexuality? There's many reasons. In order to talk about something like that you have to deconstruct it. There's the celebrity aspect and in the world of reality television we have this notion that if you are someone who is put in the spotlight irrelevant of what you do for a living you're immediately deemed a public property. And because of that you're supposed to offer up your entire life on the plate and let people devour you like some cheap all-you-can-eat buffet. I'm not a salad bar! I choose to keep many things, not just my private life or personal life, to myself. I think you have to set up how you want to position yourself as a public figure. I'm a writer first. I'm a performer second. However, now that I've been performing more and I'm getting more well known, the celebrity aspect that comes with performing seems to take over everything. Do you think you're teasing your gay fans by going on the cover of OUT while not willing to be specific about your own sexuality? No. Not in the slightest. I have a very strong gay following. Very strong and I have been fostered by gay media and promoted by gay media in the U.K. and the U.S. almost before anybody else was promoting me. I think it would be dishonest and it would be wrong, and it would be really stupid not to do a cover like that. Attitude was the first cover in the U.K., OUT was the first cover in the United States. And I'm very proud of that. the rest here http://blogs.outzonetv.com/arjanwrites/2007/06/arjan_interviews_mika_free_mp3_download.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
so_rococo Posted June 28, 2007 Share Posted June 28, 2007 Thanks for posting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Queenie Posted June 28, 2007 Share Posted June 28, 2007 Thanks for posting!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CazGirl Posted June 28, 2007 Share Posted June 28, 2007 amazing. thanks for posting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cubitus Posted June 28, 2007 Share Posted June 28, 2007 thx for posting...it's always nice to read anything about mika.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crina Posted June 28, 2007 Share Posted June 28, 2007 nice and long interview. mika has such brilliant answers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myra Posted June 28, 2007 Share Posted June 28, 2007 Everytime I read interviews or hear him saying something I think "What an intelligent guy he is". But I think that's old news for you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoveLoveMIKA Posted June 28, 2007 Share Posted June 28, 2007 Thank you for posting! Man, the more I know about Mika, the more I admire him! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeyJen Posted June 28, 2007 Share Posted June 28, 2007 thanks for postin! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaMango Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 No new information, but I really like this one. Is this in print, or online only? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JackViolet Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 I like this one too. Mika sounded a bit more fed up with certain things than he sometimes does, though. Not that it's surprising... --Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzy Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 MIKA never wavers. He knows who he is and I admire that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaMango Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 I like this one too. Mika sounded a bit more fed up with certain things than he sometimes does, though. Not that it's surprising... --Jack When asked the same questions over and over for months at a time, I'm sure it's easy for one's patience to wear thin. I'm surprised he hasn't bludgeoned someone to death with a chair yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilmot Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 Mika is brilliant, as a song-writer, as a performer and as an interviewee. Thanks for posting, I really enjoyed reading it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canderson Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 When asked the same questions over and over for months at a time, I'm sure it's easy for ones patience to wear thin. I'm surprised he hasn't bludgeoned someone to death with a chair yet. i've been anticipating the moment he will finally do that for some time now! ...and is it wrong to say i'm looking forward to it? ___ thanks for posting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiteKat Posted June 29, 2007 Author Share Posted June 29, 2007 No new information, but I really like this one. Is this in print, or online only? its an online pro-gay muso stuff....outZone Tv...they mostly cover Scizo-Sisters and the likes...Arjan contributes there....(in fact he has been seriously "pro-MIka" since maybe November.... and despite his blogs are obviously biased in a certain direction he writes about some pretty interesting new artists! The latest "find" of his - ADORE THE VIDEO (reminds of Piter Gabriel:bleh: ) ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiteKat Posted June 29, 2007 Author Share Posted June 29, 2007 I like this one too. Mika sounded a bit more fed up with certain things than he sometimes does, though. Not that it's surprising... --Jack he "sounded" pretty fed up of being asked about "certain things" already in a 2d or 3d interview...he knew it wont be the last one.... still there's no better stupid press-conference coverage (and type of questions being asked) than in "hard days night":bleh: ...ok, gotta run...byeeeeeeeeee Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JackViolet Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 he "sounded" pretty fed up of being asked about "certain things" already in a 2d or 3d interview...he knew it wont be the last one...... I don't actually just mean his sexuality by "certain things." Just in general. --Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiteKat Posted June 29, 2007 Author Share Posted June 29, 2007 I don't actually just mean his sexuality by "certain things." --Jack me too... Im talking about the whole -dyslexia-hostage-"insane russian"-reject by-industry-and of crse the one question we oh so passionately dont care about everyone would know it will be repeated over and over, cos its such a treat for the interview.... sorry for typos, Im in a rush Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linnea Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 Thanks for posting! Great interview LOVE U MIKA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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