Mika in Australia / New Zealand Press 2020

[Kumazzz]

4 hours ago, Kumazzz said:

The Morning Show

( I'm downloading.... )

https://7plus.com.au/the-morning-show?episode-id=TMSW20-028

 

 

I can't download the replay.

The Morning Show

 

episode : Wed 26 Feb

1h 40m

https://7plus.com.au/the-morning-show?episode-id=TMSW20-028

[Kumazzz]

Studio 10 uploaded to their FACEBOOK

 

 

5 hours ago, Kumazzz said:

Studio 10

Their OFFICIAL site : https://10play.com.au/studio-10

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 hours ago, Kumazzz said:

Studio 10

IG stories

 

https://www.instagram.com/stories/jimmy13/

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/stories/harrisoncartwright/

 

 

[Kumazzz]

5 hours ago, Kumazzz said:

The Morning Show

https://7plus.com.au/the-morning-show?episode-id=TMSW20-028

 

 

INSTAGRAM

 

 

[Anna Ko Kolkowska]

1 hour ago, wiredbycoffee said:

That tongue tho 😏

 

3 hours ago, Kumazzz said:

 

 

REPLAY

I cannot download the video file...

 

Studio 10

https://10play.com.au/studio-10/entertainment/2020/hes-tried-a-little-freddy-its-mika/tpv200226fiqrk

 

 

 

 

[mellody]

1 hour ago, Kumazzz said:

 

INSTAGRAM

 

 

 

There's this article, but the video of the replay you linked to seems to be geotagged, it doesn't play for me.  https://7news.com.au/the-morning-show/mika-is-touring-australia-for-the-first-time-in-11-years--c-715635 

[Mikasister]

 

[Mikasister]

https://7news.com.au/the-morning-show/mika-is-touring-australia-for-the-first-time-in-11-years--c-715635?fbclid=IwAR3YFJuzOwuhOQC8QTLsSD-5jTvB81Nmec_kPIkHLQ0X1_HUbp6elWn907c

 

THE MORNING SHOW

Mika is touring Australia for the first time in 11 years

Back in 2007, Steve Jobs had just announced the first iPhone, and John Howard was in his final year as Prime Minister.In the music scene, the year delivered us plenty of songs that were just a little bit sad - Beyonce was putting everything you owned in a box to the left, and Fergie was reminding us that Big Girls Don’t Cry.

But in all the doom and gloom, thankfully, one man came to our rescue with his upbeat anthems - Mika.

Grace Kelly made Mika a household name - but he was no one-hit wonder, with hits like Relax, Take It Easy and Love Today.

 

Now, the artist is back in Australia for his first tour in 11 years.

“The crowds are unbelievable,” Mika said.

 

“They remind me of crowds right at the beginning of my career, where you don’t know what’s going to happen on the show. We had this amazing drag queen that came on and did a full performance in the middle of the song. It was amazing.”

 

Language lover

Mika was born in Beirut before moving to Paris as a baby - and then grew up in London from the age of nine.

 

He is known for being fluent in French, English, and Spanish - and has even picked up Italian along the way.

 

“I was doing TV in France, and I kept on doing promos on The X Factor in Italy, and I got asked if I wanted to be a judge,” Mika said.

 

“So I signed a contract and they asked me if I spoke Italian - and I said yes, and the truth is I didn’t know how to speak Italian.

 

“I had two months to learn. And I will tell you, as a grown adult, the one thing that will push you to learn something really quickly is fear. It was a mess.

 

“My mother is Lebanese-Syrian, and my father is American - so in our household, there were different languages for different purposes.

 

Shows cancelled over coronavirus

While Aussie fans are lucky enough to catch Mika on tour, unfortunately, his fans in Asia have had to miss out due to concerns over the coronavirus.

 

“I was supposed to go to Japan and South Korea and do a tonne of shows there, but those plans have changed, unfortunately,” Mika said.

 

 

“I really tried up until the last minute. And in South Korea, I made a statement saying that I would go and I wasn’t going to cancel out of my own personal fear.

 

“The venue was going to be prepared. They sent out a statement saying they were going to disinfect the venue - and anyone without a mask would not be allowed at the gig.

“So in my mind, I was like, I’m going to have to do two arena shows with thousands of people wearing masks. I’ve never done that before. So we really tried, right up until it got untenable.

“At a certain point, you have to think of the crowd. So for the sake of protecting the crowd, big groups of people like that are not going to happen for a while.”

Mika will be performing in Sydney and Melbourne this week - for tickets, click here.

 

[mellody]

5 hours ago, mellody said:

 

There's this article, but the video of the replay you linked to seems to be geotagged, it doesn't play for me.  https://7news.com.au/the-morning-show/mika-is-touring-australia-for-the-first-time-in-11-years--c-715635 

 

I can watch it now, just needed to activate all the advertising cookies on the website. 🙄

[Paoletta]

i not meet Mika never 😰

 

[Kumazzz]

2 hours ago, mellody said:

 

I can watch it now, just needed to activate all the advertising cookies on the website. 🙄

 

@mellody Could you please d/l the video file if you like ? Thank you.

[Anna Ko Kolkowska]

I haven't seen it posted here;

 

 

[mellody]

3 hours ago, Kumazzz said:

 

@mellody Could you please d/l the video file if you like ? Thank you.

 

working on it... on the phone it didn't work and on the PC I'm already installing the 2nd app, hope that'll work then.

 

Edit: First attempt - downloaded without sound.

[Kumazzz]

Thank you !! @mellody

I really want to know how does he talk about the Asian tour...

[mellody]

On 2/25/2020 at 11:46 AM, mellody said:

Mika liked a Tweet where it says he'll be on this radio show tomorrow: https://www.novafm.com.au/shows/smallzys-surgery/ 

 

2 hours ago, Anna Ko Kolkowska said:

I haven't seen it posted here;

 

 

 

This might be the whole video, but it won't play for me - does it work for anyone here? https://www.novafm.com.au/video/smallzys-surgery/mika-explains-how-hes-changed-since-his-debut-album-in-2007/

 

@Kumazzz Meanwhile I got the video and the sound file extra. I'll give it another try to DL the video with sound, but if I can't, I'll just post the 2 files, then maybe someone can put them together.

[mellody]

Ok sorry, I just give up, here's the video and sound file extra. But in the article I posted above maybe you can watch the video, if you activate all cookies on the website, and deactivate all AdBlockers you might be using.

Sound:

 

Video without sound:

[Kumazzz]

13 hours ago, Mikasister said:

https://7news.com.au/the-morning-show/mika-is-touring-australia-for-the-first-time-in-11-years--c-715635?fbclid=IwAR3YFJuzOwuhOQC8QTLsSD-5jTvB81Nmec_kPIkHLQ0X1_HUbp6elWn907c

 

THE MORNING SHOW

Mika is touring Australia for the first time in 11 years

Back in 2007, Steve Jobs had just announced the first iPhone, and John Howard was in his final year as Prime Minister.In the music scene, the year delivered us plenty of songs that were just a little bit sad - Beyonce was putting everything you owned in a box to the left, and Fergie was reminding us that Big Girls Don’t Cry.

But in all the doom and gloom, thankfully, one man came to our rescue with his upbeat anthems - Mika.

Grace Kelly made Mika a household name - but he was no one-hit wonder, with hits like Relax, Take It Easy and Love Today.

 

Now, the artist is back in Australia for his first tour in 11 years.

“The crowds are unbelievable,” Mika said.

 

“They remind me of crowds right at the beginning of my career, where you don’t know what’s going to happen on the show. We had this amazing drag queen that came on and did a full performance in the middle of the song. It was amazing.”

 

Language lover

Mika was born in Beirut before moving to Paris as a baby - and then grew up in London from the age of nine.

 

He is known for being fluent in French, English, and Spanish - and has even picked up Italian along the way.

 

“I was doing TV in France, and I kept on doing promos on The X Factor in Italy, and I got asked if I wanted to be a judge,” Mika said.

 

“So I signed a contract and they asked me if I spoke Italian - and I said yes, and the truth is I didn’t know how to speak Italian.

 

“I had two months to learn. And I will tell you, as a grown adult, the one thing that will push you to learn something really quickly is fear. It was a mess.

 

“My mother is Lebanese-Syrian, and my father is American - so in our household, there were different languages for different purposes.

 

Shows cancelled over coronavirus

While Aussie fans are lucky enough to catch Mika on tour, unfortunately, his fans in Asia have had to miss out due to concerns over the coronavirus.

 

“I was supposed to go to Japan and South Korea and do a tonne of shows there, but those plans have changed, unfortunately,” Mika said.

 

 

“I really tried up until the last minute. And in South Korea, I made a statement saying that I would go and I wasn’t going to cancel out of my own personal fear.

 

“The venue was going to be prepared. They sent out a statement saying they were going to disinfect the venue - and anyone without a mask would not be allowed at the gig.

“So in my mind, I was like, I’m going to have to do two arena shows with thousands of people wearing masks. I’ve never done that before. So we really tried, right up until it got untenable.

“At a certain point, you have to think of the crowd. So for the sake of protecting the crowd, big groups of people like that are not going to happen for a while.”

Mika will be performing in Sydney and Melbourne this week - for tickets, click here.

 

 

The Morning Show

 

 

[Kumazzz]

Thanks a lot @MyEtoileMk

 

 

[Kumazzz]

Project U.tv

A Conversation With MIKA About Legacy, The Power Of Pop And Why He'll Do This Til He Dies

 

With a decade between Australian visits and a few rounds of the sun since his last proper Australian hit single, it’s wonderful to find the notable pop artist MIKA at a place where he’s finding some of his most fruitful days since the whirlwind beginnings of his career in the mid-noughties.

 

With a full calendar up to November, including his most prolific festival bookings since a circuit at the height of Life In Cartoon Motion‘s run in 2009, I’m interested to find out how he feels he’s made an impact on the pop ecosystem, one that at the very beginning of his success, left no room for the bohemian pop music MIKA felt he was intrinsically meant to make.

 

Nic Kelly’s in Bold, MIKA is in not-bold, and he has loads to talk about.

 

NK: I wanted to first talk to you about legacy. I really believe for a lot of people that you are becoming an artist who has great legacy about you. People first found and discovered you in the mid to late noughties, and then you’ve got this incredibly diverse life you’ve lived over the past fifteen-or-so years leading up to this new album last year. Do you feel you’ve created a legacy and if so, what does it consist of?

 

MIKA: I feel kind of proud to be defending something quite non-conformist within a pop world that doesn’t give you many options when you don’t really want to follow the same path. “If you’re not gonna follow that path, please get out of the way and disappear,” is kind of the message that the industry sends to you. And if you refuse that, then you’d better work ####ing hard. Like a maniac. Ten times harder.

 

Was there a temptation, initially, to follow the path though?

 

No, its birth point was something that was completely non commercial in its beginnings. I was trying to make commercial music and I would be sending it out and every time that I did that, I would get rejected. So what do I do?

 

You pivot.

 

Well, I try and develop my own voice. And I pivot, you’re right, but then I realised through all these things that I could have my own sense of what made me happy in a song and just chase those things, those colors and those emotions. And that’s it! That’s all it’s ever come from. It’s as simple and as complicated as that. So there is a lot of pride, then there’s the reality of the fact that it did connect. And it connected really fast, at a point where pop was just glorious. I mean, it was really joyful. I remember the showcases that we would always do. It was me, Amy Winehouse and then around the same time Lily Allen. There was this idea that really personal storytelling was coming back in pop, with urgent stories. You know, Amy’s stories were really urgent, that’s why they were so moving, because they were real. They were hers. Lily Allen had this kind of irreverence that was just so badass. That success then gave me the petrol that I needed to fund the development of my own world, the shows that I wanted to do, the artistic life that I wanted to build for myself, but its – like I said at the very beginning of this long answer – if you don’t conform you’d better work much harder – you have to.

 

Are there key moments of hard work that you remember from your early days as a pop icon?

 

Um, getting used to the fact that people would have opinions about you in a way that you never really thought – and trying to be tough enough for it not to affect you – but then you don’t want to get too hard either, because if you get too hard then you can’t write, you can’t connect. It’s this weird kind of dance between being really thick skinned and staying soft in the right ways.

 

Do you practice any mindfulness? You come across as quite a self aware, mindful person, do you practice any of that kind of stuff?

 

I mean, in a way, I come from a family where the most important thing in the entire day is the food that you’re gonna eat. Cooking it. Eating it. The music that plays along. It’s really important. That is a form of mindfulness. That’s a form of connectivity. You don’t have to eat quietly in a clinic in the Austrian mountains to be practicing mindful eating…

 

It can be in a one bedroom flat in London, can’t it.

 

Exactly! Surrounded by all your college friends, making a sauce for three hours. Beyond that, I think performances. Allowing the shows that you do to be moments where you completely let your guard down and you let yourself fly. That has been my most effective form of meditation, my shows.

 

I saw a video from the Brisbane show where that drag queen got up and performed with you.

 

Unbelievable. Literally, it was as if we had rehearsed it, it was impeccable.

 

You go off to separate sides of the stage but then you come back together…

 

You know she had been waiting in the queue outside for like five hours?

 

That’s incredible.

 

People were like, “it was a fake,” I was like “no,” everyone in the audience knew it wasn’t fake because she was the first one in the front row, on the side, drinking shots and making everyone laugh, for like an hour and a half, two hours before the show started. So if it was fake, she would have just popped out like a diva at the end and pretended to be in the crowd. But no, she was there, from like the middle of the afternoon.

 

If you are so mindful in that moment when you’re on the stage and you’ve got your trusted people around you, how does having someone else from the crowd coming up change that?

 

Oh no! It’s the complete opposite. Being mindful on stage and being open means you’re not trusting anyone in particular, you’re trusting everyone! You’re not protecting yourself with your band. You’re completely open. The audience is completely open to you as well. The show changes on a nightly basis because they provoke the show.

 

We’ve talked about those early days for you and those incredible formative records…

 

Yeah, but I don’t know what it is to be a legacy artist. I don’t know what that means? Maybe it’s because legacy artists are actually changing? To me, legacy artist were always, like, these really, really rich people who had made records in the 80s and 90, when records actually used to sell and they have like, multiple rehab stints, gorgeous homes in the Malibu hills and like, really bad taste in jackets.

 

Let me frame it this way. When you went into Life In Cartoon Motion, did you see yourself in 2020 still doing this? Still creating records that are meaningful and huge and performing them live?

 

I’m going to do this til I die. I mean, whether it’s me directing things and an Opera House when I’m 65 or 70, whether it’s a gallery show, whatever it turns into, I’ll let it turn into that. But it’s all connected. It’s all the same thing. It all comes from the same desire. This desire to make the world make a little bit more sense to me.

 

I want to fast-forward to 2019 to this incredible, almost self titled album. It gets sort of solemn towards the end. But there’s so much joy in it?

 

It’s solemn in a really beautiful, warm way. Like, it’s my Mum singing at the end. It’s my mom and my sister. So, even in sadness, there’s this kind of heating up the heart exercise, making yourself feel a little bit warmer, even in front of very sad moments. That’s what music can do. That’s what pop can do.

 

Yes. That is the power of pop, isn’t it.

 

That is the power of melodic pop music. It’s a funny record because it’s a record that was kind of made in real time over the course of a year and a half.

 

Is it chronological?

 

Almost. Yeah, almost, come to think of it. But it’s only reference is personal stories. Personal storytelling is the only reference point the record has. It’s not referencing any other kind of sound, or anything on radio or anything like that. I was really inspired looking at Harry Nilsson records – like I’m a huge Harry Nilsson fan – that kind of delicious poetic surrealism, or whether it’s Rufus Wainwright records, I adore him. Those records are eternal, may they last forever, because they’re born out of personal storytelling and that – no matter how many decades pass – that stays relevant, when it comes from something personal.

It’s about the lived experience and, and absolute truth in records.

Yes, but you can lie in records, because you’re not really lying. You’re just, like, wishing you were something else and that’s kind of cool, too.

What’s that track where at the start you’re in a bar and you’ve got an old-timey American accent on.

Blame It On The Girls.

 

That’s right. I hear that and I’m like, “okay, this is a different style of Mika. This is Mika doing an acting thing.” Have you ever fancied yourself as an actor?

 

No, never. I’m too awkward and I’ve kind of got one of those goofy faces.

 

So do some of the best! I suppose it’s a generic sounding question, but it’s one I’m deeply interested in. What is next? You’ve been on this World Tour for this incredible record for bloody ages, I presume it’s coming to an end soon?

 

No! I’ve got to keep playing. It finishes in November.

 

Jesus Christ.

 

It’s weird, because my festival bookings are the best since 2009.

 

Wow. How does that feel?

 

They’re massive bookings. From Coachella to loads across Europe, just like a really… weird… amount of bookings because… maybe, actually, what you said is pretty smart, maybe I am that new version of legacy artist? There is a lot of value in that, but the only thing that makes it relevant is the fact that it’s not just resting on your laurels, I think then you’re dead. You might as well just quit. So for me the tour is really going on and on in a way that I didn’t expect but beyond that, I don’t know. I’m kind of curious to see what happens next. I think the album is dead. As a format, right now. I think that we have to admit it. I think EPs are more relevant than ever.

 

Have you thought about the mixtape concept a lot of people seem to be doing?

 

Yes, but I prefer the EP concept. I prefer kind of like, telling the story across five songs. I think that’s really powerful. I think it’s a right format for the platforms that we have today. And I also think it means that you can dip into a sound world more easily and have fun with it. You know, two key tracks, plus three or four songs around them that kind of really tell the story. That’s kind of what excites me the most because then you can be like, “okay, you know what, I’m gonna go and do it inspired by Arabic music,” or “I’m gonna go do this with a bunch of my favorite Mexican artists.” We have that freedom now.

 

If you do move into creating a conceptual EP that sits in a particular sonic world, where do you feel that sound will go? Has anything that you’ve found on tour and from what resonates with crowds whilst you’re performing influenced what that will sound like, do you think?

 

I was listening to to Odelay, Beck’s record. I was listening to the jauntiness of that programming and the really effortless way that he is on that record. It’s kind of genius. It’s really one of the greatest pop records ever made, that album. And it was really inspiring to hear that because I think as a songwriter nowadays, you have to tell the story across the sound as well. It’s not just words and lyrics and melodies. I think something where the album and the songwriting is really intrinsically connected to the sound across like a five song EP is something that is really interesting to me right now.

 

My Name Is Michael Holbrook is MIKA’s latest album and it’s out now.

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/stories/nickelly.mp3/

 

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by Kumazzz

[mellody]

 

On 3/4/2020 at 4:34 AM, Kumazzz said:

Allowing the shows that you do to be moments where you completely let your guard down and you let yourself fly. That has been my most effective form of meditation, my shows.

 

On 3/4/2020 at 4:34 AM, Kumazzz said:

Oh no! It’s the complete opposite. Being mindful on stage and being open means you’re not trusting anyone in particular, you’re trusting everyone! You’re not protecting yourself with your band. You’re completely open. The audience is completely open to you as well. The show changes on a nightly basis because they provoke the show.

 

 

I love these quotes, and he's absolutely right with it. Though you'd usually connect the word "meditation" rather with something quiet than with an highly energetic Mika gig, the feeling it gives me is just like what you'd expect from a meditation - this being mindful of yourself and of the world around you, feeling whole and wholly connected with everyone and everything around you, happy and full of energy. Tho the euphoria and the rush of endorphines, which are responsible for the excitement, but also for the post-gig-depression, might not fit into the concept of meditation.  But the combination of both the meditative effect and the endorphines is what makes this tour so perfect to me - I think on previous tours this meditative effect was missing for me, tho I don't know if that was due to me being less open, or Mika, or both... - well, I guess you just need a few years of practising meditation to excel at it.

 

On 3/4/2020 at 4:34 AM, Kumazzz said:

I’m going to do this til I die.

 

Perfect, that's what I wanted to hear.  

[Kumazzz]

  Australia

DNA Magazine - Issue 243 2020

🔻 PDF file ( 4 pages / 919 KB ) DNA I243 2020_MIKA.pdf

 

MIKA: “DON’T LOSE THE COLOURS THAT MAKE YOU.”

26 MIKA’S REVELATION The pop rebel discusses coming out, love, dogs, and telling music bosses where to go!

 

 

26 DNA PROFILE A

MIKA’S REVELATION

A LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN, A LITTLE BIT OF HELL.

 

In Australia recently on his Revelation tour, Mika, best known for his 2007 global #1 Grace Kelly, discusses coming out, life, love, dogs, changing management, and telling music bosses where to go!

Interview by Ian Horner.

 

DNA: Why was it so long – 11 years – between live shows here in Australia?

 

Mika: It’s a question I often asked over the years. To be honest, I got so tired of asking that it actually led to a change in my team, and Australia was at the top of my wish-list, along with South America. The recent Australia and New Zealand tour was booked within two months of changing agents. This business sometimes functions in weird ways. It takes courage to make the changes in order to see the changes you want. It took a while, but I finally had the chance to reconnect with an audience I loved all those years ago. What was happening for you as a writerperformer and personally during that time? Well, vegan, then carnivore again; short hair, long hair, then back again; five albums, two symphonic albums, TV shows in several countries, a few arena tours. Moments of triumph and several crushing phases of total self-doubt. Oh, and two new dogs. So, life basically! The only things that have stayed constants have been my partner and songwriting. And in the past two years I’ve realised the biggest challenge is to keep growing up but without losing the brightness of the colours that made you; to be free to talk about anything, in songs and on stage, and also to feel and communicate emotion without shame. Those are the things that keep you true to yourself and the only things that guarantee you stay inspired as an artist. It’s a form of joyful defiance.

 

You’ve said that many in the business tried to change you at the start and you basically said, “screw you!” Where did that courage and selfbelief come from?

 

Anger! I was so angry with the business or, more precisely, the overwhelmingly rigid corporate white guys in Fred Perry polos who acted as the gatekeepers. I felt observed and judged. I ran to music to be free and found myself in the hands of an older version of the “cool” kids from school; the same ones who made my life hell years earlier. So, I said, “#### you” and that’s when I started to really write and move and dress from the heart.

 

What’s been the cost, personal and careerwise, of saying “#### you”?

 

I’m a totally weird pop artist. Fundamentally, I believe in the artistic value of pop as universal songwriting and an open, urgent form of communication. Ironically, this means I don’t write very commercial pop music! But my niche is strong, and I stay true to my vision. I love what other people do but I can’t do that myself. I can only do me. It all makes sense when you see me live. That was why coming back to Australia on stage was so important.

 

You came out as bi in 2010 and as gay in 2012. You said: “It’s only through my music I’ve found the strength to come to terms with my sexuality beyond the context of just my lyrics.” We applaud your honesty. Was the decision received well by everyone?

 

There was no ticker-tape parade, let’s put it that way. In movies, in the media, we have this idea that coming out is a loud and climactic affair. In reality it can be intense and quiet, and the consequences or reactions don’t reveal themselves for a while. Which can be really unsettling and you can get hurt in ways you didn’t expect. It’s especially complex for families who’ve never had anyone openly gay to cope and truly come to terms with it. Looking back on it now, I see that love does win in the end. That’s been the most reassuring thing about the whole experience. Since then there have even been other, younger people in my family who are becoming more open about their sexuality and the reaction is much more relaxed. That doesn’t annoy me at all, it makes me happy. That people and their reactions to things can change with time.

 

What things did you want to reveal in the recent Revelation tour?

 

Bits of my soul. The good of me and the ugly. The stuff I’m really good at and also the things I’m less proud of. I realise there’s power that comes from the things we don’t like about ourselves… as long as we can talk about them. The tour was a sort of musical one-man show, a rollercoaster of energy and emotion and yet there was nothing on the stage – just me and a total fearlessness to be intimate and at times grand in my performance and gestures.

 

The title of your latest album My Name Is Michael Holbrook is a very strong statement of identity. To what degree are you implying “Hang on, I’m more than just Mika”?

 

I’ve been nicknamed Mika since I was an hourand-a-half old. I always ran away from my legal name, like something that belongs to that “other” world, the world that pulls you down and dulls your colours. As a teenager I was mortified if anyone ever called me Michael. I realised that used to be a motivation but then it became a handicap. To move forward in life you have to understand all parts of your identity. Or at least try.

 

"The biggest challenge is to keep growing up but without losing the colours that made you… to be free in songs and on stage to feel emotion without shame

 

On Tiny Love you sing: “Our kind of love, it gets better every day… our love, tiny love, it’s a tiny love, my life was dull, I used to walk in a different way, but now I’m dancin’, dancin’, dancin’, dancin’…” That love doesn’t sound so tiny!

 

Ah, it’s the biggest love in the whole ####ing world! But no one else can see it and no one else can feel it apart from those to whom it belongs. It functions in another dimension of scale. It’s a form of mind-bending magic. That’s why we’ve produced songs and plays and paintings about it for thousands of years.

 

Your happy, sweet tunes often disguise darker lyrics. But there’s a very positive thread weaving through this album, daring us to throw caution to the wind. Does this mean you’re happier, more settled now?

 

I’m more able to express when I’m happy and when I’m not. I’m less stuck. This means anything can happen from one week to the next and I’m so much more curious about life now and in the future. If that’s happiness, then I guess the answer’s yes.

 

 

MIKA CONGRATULATES DNA ON TURNING 20 THIS YEAR

“Turning 20 in a post-industrial tech world is monumental. A year in the media is like seven in dog years. That means you’re actually turning 140. And that means you’re defying the odds, which is only possible if you have an emotional connection and investment with your audience. For that, you deserve huge congratulations as it’s more and more rare. Kisses to you.”

 

 

 

page 26

 

page 27

On 2/10/2020 at 9:34 PM, Kumazzz said:

DNA namagazine.com.au

By DNA Online Editor

Posted on February 10, 2020

 

10 Quick Questions With Mika

 

A lot’s happened since Mika was last in Australia. For one thing, he’s come out! Ian Horner spoke to singer/songwriter as he prepares to tour.

 

“So I said ‘#### you’ and that’s when I started to really write, and move, and dress from the heart.”

 

1. Why 11 years since you performed here?

 

I got so tired of asking my agents to book Australia I changed my team. This tour was booked two months later.

 

2. What’s been happening for you during that decade?

 

Moments of triumph and several crashing phases of total self-doubt. The only constants have been my partner and my songwriting.

 

3. What things are you revealing in the Revelation tour?

 

Bits of my soul. The good of me, and the ugly. Just me on stage and a fearlessness to be intimate. 

 

4. You came out as bi in 2010, as gay in 2012. Was it received well by everyone?

 

There was no ticker-tape parade. Coming out can be intense and quiet. You can get hurt in unexpected ways. I see love wins in the end. Other younger people in my family have become more open about their sexuality and the reaction’s been more relaxed.

 

5. Many in the business tried to change you but you learned to say “screw you!” Where did that courage and self-belief come from?

 

Anger! I was so angry with rigid corporate white guys who acted as gatekeepers. I ran to music to be free and found myself in the hands of an older version of the school bullies who’d made my life hell. So I said “#### you” and started to really write, and move, and dress, from the heart.

 

6. What was the cost of saying “#### you”?

 

My pop is not very commercial! But I can only do me. It makes sense when you see me live. THIS is why coming back to Australia on stage is so damn important. 

 

7. The album title My Name is Michael Holbrook is a strong statement of identity. Are you implying “I’m more than just MIKA”?

 

Yes. I’ve been nicknamed MIKA since birth. As a teenager I was mortified if anyone called me Michael. Now I try to understand all parts of my identity.

 

8. The love you describe on Tiny Love doesn’t sound so tiny! Why call it small?

 

It’s the biggest love in the whole ####ing world!!! But no one else can see it or feel it. That’s why we’ve made songs and plays and paintings about it for thousands of years. 

 

9. Your happy tunes often disguise darker lyrics but songs in this album dare us to throw caution to the wind. Are you happier, more settled now?

 

I’m more able to express when I’m happy and when I’m not. I’m much more curious about life now and in the future. If that’s happiness, then yes.

 

10. DNA magazine turns 20 this year and we’re bloody proud of that. What do you reckon?

 

It’s monumental. A year in the media is like seven in dog years which means you’re actually turning 140. And that means you’re defying the odds which is only possible if you have an emotional connection and investment from your audience. You deserve huge congratulations as it’s more and more rare. X

 

Revelation tour dates:

• Saturday, February 22, Auckland | Tickets
• Monday, February 24, Brisbane | Tickets
• Wednesday, February 26, Sydney | Tickets
• Thursday, February 27, Melbourne | Tickets

 

Read the full interview in the next print edition of DNA.

 

[Kumazzz]

DNA mag Australia # 241  

• Published on Jan 27, 2020  

 

https://issuu.com/fredo501/docs/dna_magazine_i241_02.2020_downmagaz.com/12