Jump to content

Australian newspaper - Mika talks abt Madonna, Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman, L. Lohan


DANI56

Recommended Posts

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/music/mika-talks-about-madonna-keith-urban-nicole-kidman-lindsay-lohan-and-his-second-album/story-e6frexl9-1225776043108

 

From the Daily Telegraph Australia

Mika talks about Madonna, Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman, Lindsay Lohan and his second album

 

YOU are the world's latest male pop star. You have sold more than six million copies of your debut record Life In Cartoon Motion. And now you are chatting with Madonna at the celebrity gathering of the year, the annual Vanity Fair post-Oscars party.

 

 

Mika should be able to remember every moment of his audience with the enduring queen of pop. But when asked to recall what surely must be one of the highlights of his own nascent pop stardom, the British songwriter giggles nervously and reveals instead that he gave Nicole Kidman "googly eyes".

 

The schoolboy who was bullied and expelled has grown up to be a naturally flamboyant showman and can hold his charming own in a room full of industry cynics who are listening to his second record The Boy Who Knew Too Much while he is sitting there. But with Madonna and Nicole Kidman, he's a mess.

 

"I become really boring. Either really boring or really inappropriate," he says, laughing.

 

 

"I was talking to Keith Urban and Lindsay Lohan was on the floor next to us taking a photo of a photo she had taken of someone on a mobile phone. You know, doing her thing. By the way, Keith Urban is nice, really, really nice, he's a class act.

 

"Nicole Kidman was talking to somebody else and looking at the whole Lindsay thing, then she caught my eye and I pulled my googly face at her. She looked at me and turned away. Oh no, I just become this daft, daft person.

 

"I believe famous people are for the CD collection on your shelf and not necessarily for your life. Destroy your icons before they destroy you because inevitably that's what is going to happen."

 

Mirroring the six million people in the world who love him courtesy of his joyful, over-the-top pop is at least another six million who wish Mika dead. Seriously. Check out Facebook and there is a plethora of groups dedicated to hating the Beirut-born, Paris-raised, London-based songwriter.

 

His breakthrough single Grace Kelly started the catcalling, with Queen's Brian May defending an artist who has many of the attributes of Freddie Mercury against the storm of sledges.

 

On the eve of the release of his second album, Mika is nonplussed about the bloggers ready to bait him. He just doesn't care, even if he doesn't sell six million records ever again.

 

"Selling all those records gives me the opportunity to make a second record and I look at that as the Flaming Lips "f... you" to the world. It's the ultimate "f... you" that Wayne Coyne is so brilliant at. He does whatever he wants and he's joyful about it and inevitably becomes cool on his own terms," Mika says. "I've realised all of it, what people think about me, none of it matters. If I want to do this for the rest of my life, it doesn't matter what the short-term opinions are. When I'm 50 and decide to dye my hair blue at least I had fun and did something that was honest."

 

Like the debut record, The Boy Who Knew Too Much is a grandiose collection of epic pop that immediately recalls any and all of the architects of music who make you dance in your loungeroom when no one is watching. The Beatles, Queen, George Michael, Michael Jackson, Prince - a note here, a burst of instrumentation there, a hint of melody, a dollop of rhythm spark countless reminisces.

 

Mika believes the sum of his influences is the very reason his music polarises people. And he blames his culturally eclectic family; sisters who paint and design fashion and a baker brother who is now studying architecture. He won his place by producing three loaves of bread and explaining why they were perfect structures.

 

"I'm just a fan; like all weird stalker fans. I am a total anti-snob and look up to musicians who are anti-snobs," he says. "I don't differentiate between what makes something cool or popular or cheesy. To me it's just a question of what sounds good or makes you feel good.

 

"I wasn't born out of a scene or a sound. I was born as a kid trying to figure out how these songs were written and I approached every type of music from that perspective, trying to figure out the puzzle that is a song.

 

"So I've never limited myself to a particular sound just whatever it takes to get the emotion across. I think that's why my music polarises people and why I get some really angry reviews from certain musos."

 

Life In Cartoon Motion was the musical equivalent of an animated series following a disenfranchised young boy negotiating a lonely childhood.

 

After two years chasing its success around the world with colourful live performances that felt like an old-school kid's birthday party, Mika disappeared into silence.

 

"The thing about touring is it's really noisy when you're in a show and then it's really lonely when you're on your own," he says.

 

"Those are the extremes. You wake up and you're alone. I don't speak during the day, I stay focused, stay in my zone, do the show and then I run away. I'll go out in the city a couple of times and walk around because I hate hotels, hate being in them. But I got used to the weirdness of being a travelling gypsy. Being a circus performer in a way.

 

"It's a funny life and adjusting to another one was just as hard."

 

He describes the life of an entertainer as having a "second adolescence". So it was no surprise that when he ventured back into the studio to start writing his second album, that his first go at teen years was looming large in his subconscious as fertile lyrical subject matter. That and nursery rhymes.

 

"I was fascinated by the fact that when you're a kid, the nursery rhymes are really sweet and you get put to bed with them and play with them. When I was 15 I bought an illustrated nursery rhyme book by Maurice Sendak called I Saw Esau and it's brutal, it's really brutal about people cooking each other in parts and chopping off each other's body parts. (Nursery rhyme) Alouette Gentille Alouette is about plucking a bird to death one feather at a time ... It's really bizarre. I think little boys find the combination of innocence and gore very attractive."

 

The Boy Who Knew Too Much is out today. Mika performs at the Enmore Theatre on November 24 with tickets on sale from September 23 for Frontier Touring members and on September 28 via Ticketek.

Edited by dcdeb
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 47
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Privacy Policy