Droopsy Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Didn't see this one posted yet? ____________________________ Mika interview for The Boy Who Knew Too Much Mika is driven by his desire for fame and love of performing, but is still battling his insecurities on his new album The Boy Who Knew Too Much. By Neil McCormick Published: 6:08PM BST 23 Sep 2009 When he was fifteen years old, a friend of Mika’s mother took him to see the Dalai Lama. “She thought I might find it illuminating at this impressionable age,” the pop star recalls, “but I was completely uninterested, except for one thing, Annie Lennox was there, sitting in the third row. And I went up to her and said, ’Annie, hello, my name is Mika. I know this is a holy Buddhist thing but I really want to make it!” She looked at me, almost upset, and then she went, ’Listen boy, if you have to make it, you won’t have a choice. You’ll have that burning.’ Then she turned around and walked away. I thought, ’well, that’s a load of use, it’s the worst piece of advice I’ve ever heard!’ But now I get it. She was right. I don’t have a choice.” Mika Penniman is a fascinating character, a tall, handsome, well spoken, polite 25-year-old whose utterly shameless, extravagant pop has quickly established him as one of the defining stars of our time. His 5.6 million selling 2007 debut album, ’Life In Cartoon Motion’, displayed a flamboyant gift for melody and irritatingly insistent hooks, combined with witty lyrics delivered in a pure singing voice that could (and frequently did) surge from a sweet tenor to a glass shattering falsetto. The sheer bravura of his presentation defied the prevailing blandness of the charts, as if channelling the glamour, daring and spirit of Freddie Mercury, Prince, Elton John and David Bowie through a narcissistic, hyperactive, 21st century nerd. Its success gave the green light to record companies to sign their own eccentric minstrels, presaging a whole new wave of personality driven pop, from Lady GaGa (a fan of Mika’s before she landed a deal) to La Roux and Little Boots. Love him or hate him (this is the kind of pop music that can cause allergic reactions), Mika is currently top of the pop pack. His second album, ’The Boy Who Knew Too Much’, is just as extravagant, compelling (and potentially irritating), with a little added bite to the lyrics. “I chase melody, shamelessly,” says Mika. “I want something that you will hate me for, because even if you don’t like my music, you can’t get it out of your head. That’s my power.” Ask most pop stars what motivates them and they will almost invariably claim it’s all about the music. Fame is a word that gets noses wrinkling, as if it is just a slightly distasteful by-product of success in their chosen field. Mika is having none of this subterfuge. “Oh, the fame!” he declares, when questioned about what drives him. “As a teenager, in my songbook, I used to script what my lighting would be like. I used to dance in my room, it was like putting myself in a trance, and making myself feel good about things, almost like a private ceremony of begging people to like you.” His current hit, ’We Are Golden’, makes this desire explicit, opening an album that Mika describes as “a comic book musical biography of my adolescence.” He describes the colourful music as “a kind of fantastical set that I’ve built” while the lyrics, full of doubt and insecurity, are “the reality. It kind of tries to hoodwink you and I love that about pop music. The approachability, the immediacy is like nursery rhymes and comic books, they’re distilled forms of art. A nursery rhyme is comforting, appealing, easy to remember but then at the heart of it the lyrics are brutal, violent and macabre.” If you can peel away the chocolate box dressing, Mika’s songs convey an almost Morrissey-ish sense of precarious ego, in which sexual desire is pitched against a self-pitying conviction ofs the protaganist’s innate lovelessness. “I guess I was addressing one thing, asking myself ’do I write music to be liked? Did I gravitate towards pop because it was popular, and I was such a loser, and I was excluded?’ Most of the people who write pop music were outsiders at some time in their life.” Picking at the clues he scatters about his childhood, it seems Mika was raised in a creative household in a large family (he has three sisters and a brother), with a frequently absent American businessman father and a Lebanese “rock n roll mum”, who once told him “you’ll either be in prison or you’ll be famous.” School was an ordeal due to constant teasing, bullying and unrequited desires, but his secret focus, since he was 12, was his fantasy life as superstar in his own bedroom. “I was a kid who found comfort in the things I created, but sometimes it felt that was only taking away from the more functional side of my personality. I felt mad.” He attended Westminster School where he experienced something of an epiphany when a teacher cast him as the MC in a production of Cabaret. “She saw that I could do something way beyond the level of a school production and did everything she possibly could to get me out of my shell. The production caused a kind of frenzy. It was just the fact that I was so out there. In the dance moves and the raunchiness and the singing, I was channelling this completely sexually androgynous guy who’s so overtly self assured. I saw all the people that I hated sitting in the front row looking at me with their mouths open. I remember hearing gossip a week later, one of the boys who had given me the hardest time said, ’Man, if I was gay, I’d be waiting at his door for a day.’ It really made me laugh. I know where my place is, I know where I belong, and I have to be comfortable with the fact that on stage and in real life, I’m different.” Like a lot of camp stars, Mika declines to be drawn on his sexual orientation but it’s there in the music. “It’s not taboo for me, discussing gender or sexuality, I do it in my shows, my songs, everything. Maybe there was a part of me that was running away from my sexuality as a teenager but maybe I was running away from a classification, because it felt like it was too easy. So far I am label-less, which is a conscious decision.” Success has not immunised him from insecurity. “It doesn’t feel like a victory. That’s probably my neurosis. I always imagine things are a bit of a disaster. When I walk on stage, all of that is gone, every single milligram of doubt and insecurity or modesty disappears, and I sometimes wish I could just live like that all the time. The stage is my territory, my boxing ring. That’s where I’m free. Its more difficult in real life.” Frank and friendly, Mika is such a shameless exhibitionist in his art, its hard to credit how normal he seems off it. “They say shyness is a form of egotism, and you are only shy because you care too much about what people think of you,” he muses. “And maybe its true, maybe I am just an egotist. At least I have found a channel for it.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/6223882/Mika-interview-for-The-Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Angel Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Thx for posting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fmbm Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Thanks for posting. Annie Lennox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vanessa Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Why do they always tend to put scary pics of him in articles ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kodes100 Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Thank you Droopsy for the articel & review. Thomas H. Green calls Mika a "songsmith." That is quite the comliment! Kewl! I sure love these glowing reviews & interesting & revealing articles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alice.loves.mika Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 "I was a kid who found comfort in the things I created" and "The stage is my territory, my boxing ring. That’s where I’m free." :wub2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FOUCHONNERET Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 thanks you!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CazGirl Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 This is beautiful, thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RainbowGirl Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 i can relate to this... thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naectegale Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 I know Mika has been compared to a lot of people but has anyone ever compared him to Morrissey before? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marilyn Mastin Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 That's great T4P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RainbowGirl Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 i just worked out what 't4p' means... i'm a little slow... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikalollipop_karla Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 thx for posting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natmika Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Man, I would have loved to watch that Cabaret performance:das: This is a great article, full of little details we didn't know.I like when a journalist does his/her homework. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laura* Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Thanks! I love this review! “I chase melody, shamelessly,” says Mika. “I want something that you will hate me for, because even if you don’t like my music, you can’t get it out of your head. That’s my power.” This is sooo true... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mariposa Posted September 23, 2009 Share Posted September 23, 2009 Now that's a beautiful article/ interview! Thank you Droopsy for always finding them lately! You're a queen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickadee Posted September 24, 2009 Share Posted September 24, 2009 “They say shyness is a form of egotism, and you are only shy because you care too much about what people think of you,” he muses. “And maybe its true, maybe I am just an egotist. At least I have found a channel for it.” I've never heard this before. I love it. What a quote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mireille geha Posted September 24, 2009 Share Posted September 24, 2009 Thax. I loved this article:wink2: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Louiza Posted September 25, 2009 Share Posted September 25, 2009 what a great article!! love the stories about annie lenox and cabaret. so interestig! thanks for posting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mari62 Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 http://www.authoritydesign.com/mika/mika_telegraph_24-09-09.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marilyn Mastin Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 That was really good! T4P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hunnyangel Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 thanks for sharing (why did it take sooo long for me to find it?!) x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparkly1 Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 "I was a kid who found comfort in the things I created" and "The stage is my territory, my boxing ring. That’s where I’m free." :wub2: I can so get that (not for me of course, but it makes so much sense) T4p btw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sienna Posted October 14, 2009 Share Posted October 14, 2009 I can't believe I missed this, it's a really good article and I don't think we have seen Mika so openhearted before! Well, if we can trust the content, that is! Thanks for posting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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