Interview on Fast Forward Magazine (Germany), 2.10.2012

[mellody]

just a quick update, the editor confirmed to me again that we *will* get the original transcript - it will only take a bit longer than she originally planned. probably next week.

[tiibet]

just a quick update, the editor confirmed to me again that we *will* get the original transcript - it will only take a bit longer than she originally planned. probably next week.

 

Oh, that's so kind of them, thanks Karin!

[mellody]

finally, here's the original transcript of this interview that we got exclusively for MFC, including a few bits that weren't on the magazine website! thank you to gabi from fastforward magazine!

 

part one:

 

Mika is one hour late for the interview, and I jokingly tell him that my baby son at home is starving now because he was late...

 

Uh-Oh... A malnourished child, first victim of my promo campaign! (laughs)

 

I thought I'd tell you something for a change.

 

Hope it's good

Yes. I thought I'd tell you how I actually discovered you. I have this thing with pop stars. I'm a little bit older than you...

 

How old are you?

 

…Mika estimates my age. Chivalric as he is, he makes me six years younger than I am without hesitation and watches pictures of my kids on my mobile. He comments on the picture of my baby son:

 

He looks like he's about to cry! It's like one of these Oxfam commercials, give us your money... in this case it's give us your time! (laughs)

 

I grew up in a time when there were basically three pop stars: Madonna, Prince and Michael Jackson.

 

Right, a time I talk about a lot. And how I always say that we'll never have icons like this again.

 

I discovered you through a friend, at a time I was so bored with the current music scene. I was fed up with all those depressive looking indie bands with dirty t-shirts...

 

They were the reason why I couldn't get signed!

Anyway, that friend asked me whether I knew Mika and said, “You got this pop star thing going on, you gotta love him!” So then I looked up Mika on Youtube and I saw this video of you doing Grace Kelly on the piano at Jools Holland.

 

Yes, my first ever TV performance!

 

I was like, this guy is completely crazy! (Mika laughs) – but I love it! And then shortly after I saw you live for the first time, that was in 2007. And I thought, finally someone is doing all of this again, balloons and confetti and animal costumes...

 

Yeah, and it was weird cause the giant balloons and the confetti and all that was based on a night club that I used to sneak out to when I was 16 years old … 15 years old! In London. And it's gone now, it was in an old theatre, it was called the Astoria. And they used to have balloons and confetti, and everyone used to literally just go insane, just because the balloons and confetti were falling on them. And I always thought that that kind of unifying thing that happens with something so childish was so hysterical, and that's why I ended up going in that direction with that. And weird that it was from a nightclub, you know when I was 15.

When I was doing that, I guess I... I never really thought about what I was doing. I just... I did it because it felt like it needed to be done and it felt like... I felt comfortable when I would make the music that I make. And still to this day I haven't changed in one bit, my process is the same. And my performances are even more, like, they try and carve their own space, you know?

Anyway, that's nice to discover me in that way as opposed to you know, whatever, a press release, or... So much better!

Before I came here I watched this TV-Performance again. And I wondered, what are you thinking when you see this old stuff of yours?

 

I think it was yesterday! I mean, it's all part of the same process. Because the intention then – especially when I sing a song like Grace Kelly – the intention that I go into doing it now is exact the same intention that would go into performing it on that TV show. Because it was my creation. And I think that's the one thing, like, when you become known for something, if it's yours, if it's really your thing and you so truly believe in it in every single way then you never get a hangover and you never betray yourself. But if it's not, and that's what everyone loves you for then it can... all sorts of negative associations could build up around it. So yeah, I think, oh that's a good snapshot! A fantastic snapshot of exactly... of what I am and what I had created then and where my career kinda first found its start. Beyond that I don't think... (thinks for a long time) I don't know, I don't think about stuff like that, I guess I don't need to because I'm always trying to expand and challenge myself forward. But I also think that how thankful I am not to resent something like that because it came out of so much frustration and so much... I was forced to be solitary and independent in the way that I carved myself out, simply because I had no other choice. So yeah, I think it's cool. (grins)

 

And now you already release your third album.

 

Yeah, I know!

 

The magic third. I think that the third album is always really really interesting. A lot of musicians tell me that the first album is the one that is the most exciting, the second is the one that...

 

is the most transitional. 100 percent.

 

And the third is something really magic because you got beyond that first and second and you are still there.

 

I wish more people understood the process, cause you see it so closely, it's so true! This is magic fairy dust! That seems to just like sparkle on... - if the environment is a good one - on the third record. And it's really weird, even now as I've just finished it, cause I only finished it a couple of weeks ago, I still sit there and I'm like, you know what, I don't know if it'll ever be like that process ever again. Because... If you have the strength, in my opinion, and this is purely from my point of view... if you have the strength to push through, and challenge yourself and to break your own habits and to make that jump, or that leap of faith, then you can get into this zone on your third record which is very deciding. This is the point where you decide whether you are gonna be an artist, the one that you fought your whole life to be, or whether you're not going to be an artist. And that leap of faith is pivotal.

And I completely get the whole transitional thing. I made a second album that was beautiful and beautifully crafted but it was a continuation of this kind of like identity thing that I had started. And it was darker and it was more solitary, and it had a concept of gothic fairy tales. And even the cover, on purpose, I made one, a blue version of the first. And so with this third one, it was literally, like, it was entering the studio every day and saying to yourself that you have zero track record and that you are gonna use the tools around you that have been given to you as a result of the albums that I've made but destroy your ego and destroy the track record in order to put myself out there without any sense of reservation or guardedness. And that was hard to get to because I didn't know how to start. But once I started, it's been one of the most liberating experiences in my life since... (thinks) since the moment where I figured out what the concept of my first album would be.

And it fits my pattern of every, like, 4 or 5 years shedding this kind of lizard skin and turning into something else. And I think it's what I expected of myself. But you're right, that third album thing can be really interesting.

 

But not even having listened to it, even if you see the cover you see that you've taken a step forward. Because it's the first time that you are really prominent...

 

...that I'm on the cover, yes. But still you see this kind of slight... there's an iconicness, there's a beauty quality to it, but at the same time there's still this wicked devil sense of humour because I'm wearing this kind of weird alien hat which also spells my name. It references everything from Nick Knight to Jean-Paul Goude to Bjork. On the one hand it's iconic, on the other hand it's ridiculous. But it's still, it's stepping out of this thing, it's like... the weirdo stepped from behind his animated characters and you're seeing him, and it's quite appropriate that I'm not... you know, my shoulders are bare, I'm not wearing too many clothes, and it's kinda like popping out, risking it for the first time.

And it's really weird cause when you hear the record, there's marimbas and there's these little kind of slightly tribal primal elements to it and these very joyous kind of eruptive things as if it's a beginning... but it's not a beginning, it's the third time round, but it sounds like a beginning. And I think that's very telling of the mood that I was in when I made the record.

 

So tell me, how was it like, you did a lot of touring after The Boy Who Knew Too Much.

 

I did 2 years. I had a lot of work to do because we sold so many records on that first album and then I made the second album and I knew that it would be tougher because of the nature of the record. But, it was tough, I mean I had to work it, to get to 2 million, which is kind of where I got with the second album. On the one hand you could say oh that is fantastic because 2 million is a f*ck load of records. But on the other hand you'd say well it's not the first. Whatever the case is, it was a really hard slog and touring became my way of showing myself, of establishing myself, and showing... explaining to people the world that I come from and what I'm like as a musician. It all kind of came to life and it became clear as I stepped on stage. So I toured like a maniac and then I stopped and for the first time in my life I wasn't on tour, I wasn't in education, I wasn't making an album, and I wasn't a waiter, and I wasn't on summer holidays – I was just unemployed and confused. And I certainly didn't feel like a songwriter because I had been on the road and I felt like a touring artist who wasn't on tour. I felt like an unemployed touring artist. It was demoralizing, it was crushing.

And so eventually life took over and a few things happened, and I started blaming everyone around me. I was like “It was your fault, you've ruined my life!”, you know, everyone from my partner to my family, and I had a terrible break up and then after that my sister had this insane accident that I witnessed and I was there for, and it shook me in many ways, and it was the first step towards the true deconstructing of my ego. An ego which I didn't know I even had accumulated but it did, this kind of patina, this crust that was stopping me from writing. And you know there's no room for an ego when you're watching someone that you love die. But she didn't die, she started to get stable again. I found that the only way to make my life start again and by that I mean my writing, but my life is my writing, it's what I've done since I was nine, it's what I do... I had to run away.

And so I found the first person that I could, and it happened to be Nick Littlemore and he happened to be desperate to work on a project because he had been driven mad by Cirque du Soleil who he was working with and he wanted to escape so bad. 6 hours after speaking to him I bought a ticket to Montreal. I hadn't written a song in over a year and a half and I certainly hadn't written a good one in two and a half years. And I land in Montreal, I walk into the studio from the airport, and he's rented like 23 keyboards and 6 basses and 6 samplers and I walk in and because of the atmosphere that I was thrown into and because of the fact that I was ready and that I was desperate to start afresh in a way, that night I wrote The Origin of Love in about an hour. And that was that, that was the beginning of the whole record. I felt like I had finally once again, I had taken my real life and had managed to put it in a bottle and the bottle was that song. And then everything went from there. And then it was easy. And I didn't go home for 7 months and I made this record.

And the pivotal thing about the record is that it's kind of like a house party and some people you know, you recognize on the record but there's some voices doing BD's and stuff you'll never know, like, people you've never heard of, but you don't really give a sh*t, because it feels like the record was born out of a collective, in a way that a record from the 70s would have been born out of a collective. And that was really important to me. My first album was born out of a collective. Sure it was me, but it was definitely born out of the environment I was in.

The young lady from Universal who takes care of the interviews quietly enters the room and points out to us that our time is up in 5 minutes. Mika sends her back out.

 

Oh no, we need a little more time!

Edited November 12, 2012 by mellody

[mellody]

part 2:

 

What were you most scared of when you started writing after such a long time?

 

The problem was, every time I started writing or tried to even think of writing, I used to think about what people would think.

 

You think about things like that?!

 

I never do, ever ever ever in a million years! That's why I couldn't write, that's what my block was! And it was very much like, what kind of record I should be making when I've never in my life tried to stylistically define or pigeonhole my writing or my music, I've never done that and that's why my music exists in the first place. And so I had to endure a horrible accident and fall in love in order to find that wistful carelessness, that selfish carelessness, almost reckless carelessness which I had to have again in order to make a record that was real, that was true. That's what I was afraid of, I was terrified that I was becoming like artists I didn't like. People who thought about the kind of record they wanted to make before they made it. (laughs) Because who the f*ck does that?!

That's the thing, it's just gotta happen. And as much as you try to build an industry around it, at the end of the day it's still a very weird thing that no one really understands, how do you make a record. You know, you make the best records when you feel like you're stealing them. When I write a song often I feel like, it just happens, I vomit it out and I wonder where I got it from and I feel bad because I think I've stolen it from somebody else … as if it was in the air and I took it before the next person did.

That's crazy!

 

I know. (grins) Hence the Alien hat on the cover of my album. To protect me from aliens. Like antennas.

 

But in all this you stick to your major label...

 

They stick to me!

 

Yeah, or like that. But you kept your freedom, didn't you?

 

100 percent! But they gave it to me. It's a mixture of the two. First thing, I'm very lucky because I sell records around the world. I don't sell records just in one place. And that affords me a kind of... that decentralizes the focus of power from my label, which is really important. There's not one market they can say where WE have the right because we're the ones investing in you. It's not like that, which really helps me! That's one thing. Also I think that... I'm signed to the UK and not to the US. And inevitably I think a record company like Island in the UK is gonna be one of the most free major label places to make a record. But you know I fight. I walk into rooms and scream at the top of my lungs when I feel like I'm being screwed. Because it's my life, like, I have to fight. And I do fight, I really fight. What's the worst that can happen? What can they do to me if I walk in and scream. I don't scream to be a dick, I'm like, you can't do this, you have to back my records, or you have to help me make them or you have to help me with the legal work, otherwise the record won't get put out. All this kind of sh*t that we have to deal with, as beyond the writing, there's all this other stuff. But for some reason at this moment I've been very lucky with my label and I think a lot of people are quite surprised that I'm able to make the records I make within a major label but maybe that's just because, again, they didn't create me. I was me and they decided to stand next to me. And there's a big difference between being created by a label and having a label say OK we're gonna hold your hand or we're gonna stand by you.

Also because Island is full of weirdos. In the UK they're really odd. They only have very unusual things. And they don't do it just for show. They wouldn't sign Rufus Wainwright just to say that they had Rufus Wainwright on their roster. It does sign Mumford & Sons, a folk band, they'll procure a big career, guide a big thing. Same with Florence. Same with Amy, they did that with Amy, they... round the first record everyone thought that that was nothing, that it was gonna do nothing! even when the second album came out and the reviews were mediocre, everywhere. For me I've been lucky, I can understand, you know, I've had a lot of friends who've been burned by major labels. Especially at Sony a lot of them were dropped, and then they got picked up by EMI and they became superstars, so that's a f*ck you!

 

You said you sell records around the world. But it's also noticeable that you have the most dedicated fans. They travel all around the world for your concerts!

 

They travel all around the world, to this day, everywhere we go. And they're part of this kind of thing, I can't describe it...

 

It's almost like they do a better work than any promo agency...

 

That's what my Italian label says, and so they've started working with them in Italy, for example. They'll coordinate their campaigns with the fan club. Because that's how powerful the fan clubs are. That's how dedicated they are. They'll mobilize themselves.

 

They contact media, they contacted us as well... they saw that we featured The Boy Who Knew Too Much and then they wrote e-mails...

 

Saying what?

 

Have you heard that Mika's bringing out a new album...

 

Really? That's fantastic. I have some amazing German fans as well. AMAZING German fans!

 

But isn't it weird if you always see the same faces in the first row? (Mika thinks for a moment, then laughs) Shall I stop?

 

No no no, it's actually quite amazing! They... I don't know, I think it must be something to do with the kind of music I make as well. I think it's because it exists outside of a fad or a fashion, it doesn't come from a sound or a style or a period of fashion. It is what it is, and subsequently it means that you don't get people who are into that fashion and then as soon as that fashion's gone they go. It's not like that. It's more Flaming Lips than it is anything else. You know it's more like the music and the experience it all goes together into this thing. I don't know, I think it's maybe something like that. The fact that it wasn't born out of a fashion and it exists on its own terms. I think that helps a lot with fans.

It was the same with Prince... his fans even started tattooing themselves all over...

 

Same with me. With my characters and with my sayings or with signatures. Not all of them, but a lot. And I think again the thing is, the similarity with Prince, Prince was never a fashion, was he. That's what a lot of people forget. That it wasn't fashion. Now it's so easy to say it was fashion, but it wasn't. It was something else. I always remember Greg Wells, who is three times happily married now, telling me how, you know he was into David Bowie and he used to dress like David Bowie and everyone was just like screaming homophobic abuse at him for liking this awful music sung by this awful weirdo, geeky weirdo that they considered David Bowie cause he grew up in Peterborough in Canada. So you forget, you know.

 

Is there anyone that makes you a fan?

 

Me as a fan? Yeah, there are, there are a few people. Who right now would I get that feeling from... (thinks) It's funny, I'm the kind of person that... I don't have icons for what they represent as icons. But I can be in an audience and at the end of a song even if everyone's sitting down I'll stand up and scream and clap and whoop, even in a classical concert because I get so in awe of someone's process of creating something that's good, that it just hits me so hard that I become a complete, like, screaming fan – but just during the concert... and then away from that it all kind of disintegrates. It's really weird. If I like something in a show I'll just go crazy.

 

What's your favourite record at the moment?

 

Right now I like the Miike Snow record. I think it's great. I think it's not very commercial though. At all. And you know I really like Regina Spector. She's really stuck to her thing and it's just so charming and musically I think it's great.

 

I tell Mika that Miike Snow will perform at the Berlin Festival the next day, and he tells me a bit more about the band...

 

It's actually made up of 3 guys, one New Yorker and 2 Swedish guys, called Miike Snow and they create this imaginary thing. It's interesting, have you heard it? Some of it is very beautiful. There's a song called Vase which is fantastic. I like the music more than I like the world around it. But it's really good.

 

Do you listen to a lot of music yourself?

 

Yeah I do. A lot. But I don't get to go to enough shows. And I don't like seeing people at festivals. Because it's just not the same.

 

You sense that yourself when you perform at festivals? Is it more difficult than your own shows to which people just come for you?

 

It's just different. It's a different kind of show. The scale of control that you have is less than in a closed arena or theatre or club even. You can make it so tiny, you know, and you can stamp on the floor and in a closed space it has effect. There's so many distractions in a festival. Fundamentally, I hate to be crude, but the reality is, it's always the tension between the festival trying to make money and trying to present a good musical experience. Because I don't care what anyone says but putting a whole row of Chinese noodle stands and beer stands on either side of a performer's stage is certainly not gonna enhance your musical experience! (laughs) You're part of the process of entertainment. The beer is as important as the music sometimes and it's OK... but there's another side to present. That's why it's not the same.

 

Why are you not coming to Berlin on your tour in November?

 

I don't know. It's a very small tour. Tiny venues. Nearly sold out. Cologne is almost sold out. Because it sharpens my nails, firstly. It changes, it makes you kinda, I don't know, it makes you good to do a tour like that. It's really important. And doing things like Casino de Paris in Paris is really important. Last time when I was in Paris I did a couple of nights at Bercy but before that I did the Cirque d'Hiver which is this tiny circus from the 1800s. I would never have been able to do Bercy comfortably if I didn't do the Cirque d'Hiver shows. But also it's a way to get started again. I'm an artist who you never know what's gonna happen with.

It's good that you can keep that. That you take the possibility to go back to small venues.

 

Oh yeah, exactly. But it also means that I can do a tour which takes me to places where I wouldn't be able to go because in some of those places, like Denmark for example, I would never be able to play an arena. And that's the kind of career that I have. Sure, I can play a really big venue in Munich but my venue in Cologne is gonna be smaller. By saying OK, these are the venues we're doing, it takes me to places. And it means that I can do it all in one go. And as an artist like me, sometimes it's more important for me to make sure that I have a presence of some kind in lots of different countries than a bigger one in a few countries. And that's something that I as a musician I'm very clear about. Cause I wanna play in as many places and have a shot at coming back to as many places as I possibly can. As this is what I do. I'm not the kind of person who'd say, OK, just give me the venue, I'll show up there if it's big enough, if we sold enough tickets. You can't make music like music that I make and have a career like mine if you have that attitude. You can't. Mine is this kind of weird alternative pop thing and it has its zig-zags.

 

Well maybe next year another gig in Berlin...

 

I would love to play again in Berlin. I've always had good shows in Berlin. I don't know why. I did a show in a church actually. That was really fun, I liked that a lot. Everyone was stood on the benches. So f*cking cool, I loved that!

 

We chat a little. Among other things about the fact that my daughter, when she was only 1 ½ years old went through a phase in which she was fully possessed of Mika's debut album "Life In Cartoon Motion". And I tell him that I would find it nice if he simply goes on like he is, so that my newly born son also has the opportunity to grow up with his music. In the end, we stand up together and Mika brings me to the door. Just before we say goodbye, he pauses for a moment. "This is really a nice compliment. Continue, so that your children can grow up to my music. " We shake hands and I take the elevator down, a smile on my lips. Sometimes Mika accomplishes things like that completely without balloons and confetti.

Edited November 12, 2012 by mellody

[cathouzouf]

thanks mellody!

[Marilyn Mastin]

Hey, I like the idea of the Italian fans working, withy the professionals on the promo stuff! Wish we UK fans could do the same!

[Christine]

That is a really great interview. Thanks for getting it for us Karin.

[furette]

Wow, that is a great interview! Thanks for posting it. It really was interesting to read.

[DerMoment1608]

Thanks Karin for getting the original And say Gabi big thanks from us for giving us the original transcript!

[mellody]

yeah, i also love this interview! what he says about his fans... ... and of course especially this bit:

 

Really? That's fantastic. I have some amazing German fans as well. AMAZING German fans!

 

[krjsantos]

Amazing interview

 

smart interviewer and .... interviewee, of course

 

Thanks a lot, saskia and mellody