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Article in German music magazine

Petra

By Petra
in Mika News and Press

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mellody

mellody

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ok well i'm not so sure about the "soft spot" for freddie mercury, it sounds a bit strange to me, but here's the translation of part 2. if you find any major mistakes, feel free to let me know so i can correct them. :wink2:

 

 

But it didn't last. When Mika was 6, his father was sent on a business trip to Kuwait, just when Iraqi troops marched in, provoking the first Gulf War. “He had to seek protection in the US embassy. Outside there were snipers lurking. He was trapped there for 6 months.”

 

When it was possible to leave the country securely after the end of the war, the family decided to start over new. They moved to London's prosperous district South Kensington, where Mika attended the public French school, the Lycée Francais Charles de Gaulle. Which turned out to be his downfall. “I always had a very unique way of presenting myself”, he admits, and he remembers the bright red trousers, which he loved, regardless of the mock of his fellow students, “and I had accepted long ago that I'd never be cool in the eyes of the other kids. But when I realized that the teachers were also against me, I finally became an outsider.”

 

He first started to skip lessons, then he skipped school for whole days. In spite of his pleas, his parents refused to take him out of school. Only when at the age of 13 he made a vow of silence for a while, a story he today calls “mini-nervous-breakdown”, his mum started to take the problem seriously. She took him out of school and allowed him to spend his time in the park or in nearby museums. But she intended on Mika's further education, therefore a Russian music teacher was hired, a fact that suited Mika's growing love for music.

 

Six months later he participated in the choir of Strauss' “The Woman Without A Shadow” at the London Royal Opera House. He started singing Jingles for British Airways, BBC cooking shows and milk ads – for 45 pounds each. His flourishing career was the perfect substitute for the typical activities adolescents usually do, like making friends and building a social environment. Relieved about having found something he was good at, Mika developed a burning ambition that matched his growing confidence. Proudly he composed his own songs: “Did I think my songs were good? I thought they were perfect!”

 

At 15, he flew over to the States for a family wedding. There he gate-crashed a party of his host's neighbour: Bob Jamieson, then head of RCA Records. To an audience that included Diana Ross, Mika sang five of his own songs. Jamieson's reaction? “Boy you have guts.”

 

Back in London, his “guts” developed strongly. Mika recorded his first demo, an impressive piano song called “Over My Shoulder”, which later should appear again hidden on Life In Cartoon Motion. He sent the song to all London talent scouts, convinced that he soon would be discovered. No one was interested.

 

Unperturbed, he harassed record company managers the following years – with limited success. He met Simon Cowell, who said his voice had potential, but not his songs. “I couldn't take him seriously,” Mika says today, “right above him on the wall was a Gold CD for his work with the Teletubbies!” Another idea was making the new Craig David out of him, a story he later picked up in “Grace Kelly”: “Should I bend over / Should I look older / Just to be put on your shelf?”

 

His saviour appeared at the end of 2005 in the form of Tommy Mottola: The American music mogul had discovered Mariah Carey and married her later. Impressed by his songs and his energy, Mottola signed him with Casablanca Records (a “homage” to the legendary 70s Disco Label, home of Donna Summer and the Village People). Mika had found someone whose visions matched his own. “He could become as important as Bowie, Robbie or Elton”, says Mottola, “he's in the same league.”

 

Creative freedom was granted, but based on a collaboration: Mika went to Los Angeles to work on his debut album with songwriter Jodi Marr (Geri Halliwell, Ricky Martin) and producer Greg Wells (Paris Hilton, Céline Dion). He took his 27-year-old sister Yesmine (yeah, they wrote it that way! :naughty:), who helped him design the cartoon characters for his album cover. Characters that still swirl through his head. “This is not just music for me”, he tries to explain, “but my personal world.” So it's a fantasy world come true? “No!” he answers immediately. “Bollywood is escapism, HipHop Videos are escapism. I don't try to escape reality. I just make my reality more bearable by wearing my rose tinted glasses. Works quite well, doesn't it?”

 

Back in San Remo, Mika's other sister, Paloma, 24, a tall elegant woman with a mane of pitch-black hair, looks through a pile of Dolce & Gabbana Outfits for the show tonight. She has been introduced to me before as his inofficial manager. She prefers “Assistant”. “He likes having his family around him”, she says with a curbed voice. “And that's why I'm here. To make sure he's happy.”

 

“Happy” is not the matching word for Mika today. He had interviews all day and all those questions start to irritate him. Like that of his soft spot for Freddie Mercury (“Soft spot? I only know a handful of Queen-Songs”). And then there are the continuing speculations about his sexual orientation, which he brusquely refuses to clarify. In spite of everything, Mika is also a private individual. And it should stay like this. “I can assure that there are no skeletons in my closet”, he says, clutching the armrest of his chair. “It wasn't through scandals that I got where I hope to stay for the next 25 years. Cause I believe it's a question of honour and dignity to not reveal everything to the public.”

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Petra

Petra

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May I say that the woman who translated this article to German for the Musikexpress could have done abetter work than this :naughty: The English version is wonderful but its German equivalent sounds... lame.

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violet_sky

violet_sky

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great violet_sky, couldn't you have told us sooner? :sneaky2::wink2: admit it, you just wanted to test our translation skills :naughty:

 

Actually I didn't notice it until I came to the 'He gets up to get a bottle of water...' part. Isn't it weird? I read that and thought: 'Oh yes, I HAVE read that somewhere before' .... I really should check in to the chew chew mental asylum...mwahahaha, he gets up to get a bottle of water... lol. Brilliant. :insane:

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mellody

mellody

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According to the author, Jodi Marr and Mika's singing teacher are men and Mika has been making jingles for milk-products... very strange :roftl: (apart from spelling names wrong and so on...)

 

i just found that milk products thing in an old sun article from january, so it seems like that one's true...

 

He provided the catchy bits of music for food producer Kuwaiti Danish Dairy Company and created muzak too, some of which was taken up by British Airways.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,4-2007030618,00.html

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