OUR LATEST ISSUE
MIKA
Mika
Pride Life catches up with Mika
“How was that for you?” I ask Mika as we settle back with drinks on an unexpectedly sunny day on the roof of east
I’m asking about a particularly tricky photoshoot he’s just put himself through where he had to be literally strung from the rafters while his mum and sister ran around styling the whole thing with ties and flowers.
A bit crazy but nothing that “out there” for someone who regularly performs with life-size Banana Splits-style cartoon animals – part cute, part creepy - often with a celebrity mate hidden inside.
But it’s very much a family affair, the whole Mika thing: sisters and mums style, advise, inspire, accompany, do artwork for albums, while Mika still lives in the basement of the family house, albeit totally done out and updated with his collection of rare Tin Tin prints and Mr. Benn artworks and – more importantly – with its own independent entrance.
He still gets told to turn his music down, mind, while his sisters have no compunction in telling him if what he’s doing isn’t working. It’s one reason he likes having them around: they dare say what someone on the payroll wouldn’t.
“I think the traditional thing when you come out with a second album is you are even more guarded than the first time,” says Mika, who was born Michael Penniman in
His first album, Life in Cartoon Motion, launched with number one single “Grace Kelly” before going to sell six million copies worldwide bagging him a Brit, a Grammy nomination and headlining gigs across the world, including one with his mate Beth Ditto at The Brits.
But don’t get any idea that Mika is about to spill the beans on his private life. He’ll tell you so much – about his friendship with Lady Gaga (definitely not a hermaphrodite, apparently), about superstar soirees with the likes of Madonna and Tom Ford, about how when his first single came out he plastered the streets around where someone who had dumped him lived, just to rub it in that he’d moved on – but there are some things he’ll never say. Like whether the person who had his neighbourhood flyered was a man or a woman, for instance.
The reason he gives – and it may well be true because Mika certainly doesn’t come over as someone at all embarrassed by being who he is while there are enough gay references on both albums to get him blacklisted by a lot of religious-owned radio stations in the States - is that he grew up on Bowie and loves the idea of never quite being sure where an artist is coming from sexually. He also likes the freedom of living without labels, sleeping with whoever you like without having to join a club.
“I decided to put a bit more of my heart on my sleeve with the second album and it comes with its own risks,” he says, explaining that his first album was about childhood, but not childhood as it’s usually portrayed.
“I wanted to play with childhood but to turn it on its head,” he says. “There’s an element of the naïve that I find interesting. People say, ‘Oh you’re obsessed with childhood,’ but children scare me. They’re too honest. I’m not good at being child-friendly. I’m a bit, ‘Well if you’re going to tell me exactly what you think, I’m going to tell you exactly what I think.’ When it comes to friends’ kids, they either don’t get on with me or think I’m the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
This album, The Boy Who Knew Too Much, is about adolescence and discovering who you are.
“I was doing things I shouldn’t have been doing,” he says when you ask what his own adolescence was like: apparently there was a lot of sneaking out of windows caked in guyliner and going to clubs and then getting a slap for it when he got back.
“And I tried everything,” he says. “I’m glad I did it then because now I’ve stayed sane. I’m kind of over it. I don’t see the point now. For me now taking drugs and going out and getting drunk every night is a really bad form of escapism that only makes you miserable.”
Back then, when he still had his stint at the Royal College of Music ahead of him, his mum was going mad at his after-hours antics. “‘You’re either going to end up in jail or famous. You make your mind up,’ she used to say. And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s an easy choice’.”
By the age of 16 he had already wangled himself into Simon Cowell’s office: Mr. X Factor apparently told Mika he had a good voice but needed to work on the songs. Looking back, Mika thinks he was right.
It may be this free-spiritedness, this refusal to fit other people’s ideas of what a pop star should be that have made Mika the darling of the fashion set fielding offers to create animated films and musicals for major Hollywood movie stars, all of which he’s more than happy to turn his hand to.
So, with the world seemingly at his feet, is there anything not right in Mikaworld? He thinks. Insomnia? He often ends up sleeping in the bath. Dyslexia? Actually he’s quite proud that the Royal College of Music have recognised it as an issue for musicians. No, it’s his bum.
“I wish it was firmer,” he smiles, declining to get up so I can give it an expert appraisal. “But I would rather have a non-firm arse than do any exercise. Exercise gives me the shivers.”
The album, The Boy Who Knew Too Much, is out now.
