Shana Naomi Krochmal
When pop singer Mika, 24, appeared on Out’s cover last July [Pop's New Queen], he firmly declared, “I’m not willing to label myself.” His consistent not-quite no comment continues to ruffle the feathers of out and proud queers -- and, of course, rile up his staunchest defenders.
He recently checked in with Out from London, updating us on his whirlwind year, his most obscure and infamous inspirations, and just exactly what he thinks of the folks who say he’s hiding in plain sight.
Out: In 2007, you played at Coachella, won three World Music Awards and were nominated for a Grammy. What was the highlight?
Are you going to the Grammys?
I don’t know. I’m more concerned with my own show the day after in Los Angeles. The nomination is quite an honor -- yet award ceremonies are always a little bit of a meat market, aren’t they? I like the nomination more than anything. I think if I was performing it’d be different because I’d have a purpose. We’ll see.
What’s going to be different about this tour?
Unfortunately, I can’t bring the same show all over the States. In L.A. and New York and some of the Canadian shows where we’re doing 10,000 seaters, we’ve got the full show. But because we’re playing clubs down to 1,500 people, we can’t physically fit [everything] into the venues. For the bigger shows, it is a lot closer to this total gig vision that I’ve got. We work with an 18-foot puppet, a snow machine, stuff like that. It’s fantasy. As long as it’s all based around a good set of songs and a good set of performances, it’s important to create magic and stretch the world.
I’ve been to a lot of arena gigs, and some are very disappointing because they rely too much on a big bunch of screens. There’s a disadvantage being 9,000 people away from the performer, and it’s that he’s quite small. But there is also an advantage to that, because you can create illusions that you never could within a small club, a sense of scale and magic. In the next two years when I’m developing my big shows, especially in Europe and Canada and in Asia, I’m looking forward to creating this virtually delicious show that happens all over at different stages of the arena -- so you never feel like you’re far away whether you’re in the third row or the 300th row.
I think that the Madonna concerts are really entertaining. It’s not like going to a Led Zeppelin gig, but it’s still kind of a visual feat. Prince -- he’s the master, and that relies mostly on music too, the tightness of the band, the tightness of his performance. And also there’s that whole Cirque du Soleil thing, you know? When you see some of those shows, you’re literally sitting there scratching your head, wondering how the hell they’ve managed to create that visual effect.
I always go on about Harry Nilsson. He’s just this victim of his own profession, very underrated. He’s so talented, undeniably so, both as a writer and as a singer -- but just not quite fashionable enough to be famous as a household name. And ironically enough, he was the favorite songwriter of the Beatles for most of their career, both Lennon and McCartney, and very good friends with them as well. And I love Prince, because he’s a musical genius and he’s the opposite end of the spectrum. Whereas Harry Nilsson was introspective and fragile, Prince is a superstar and kind of the short man who kind of dominates the arena.
You’ve sold nearly 5 million records worldwide, and yet such a small percentage of that is in the U.S. Are you frustrated about not being a household name here?
Why do you think that is?
It’s very simple. I didn’t get radio support in the States with “Grace Kelly,” even though it was number one in most territories around the world, probably in the top two or three songs in the world by radio play in every single country. I heard from a [U.S.] radio station a couple of months ago, and the programmer’s excuse was, “It’s because he says he wants to be like a woman. He has the line where he says he wants to be like Grace Kelly, and we just don’t feel comfortable with this song.” And then when it got to “Love Today,” and we tried to get radio to play it they said, “Impossible -- it’s a man singing in the vocal range of the woman.” It’s kind of depressing, really. It’s just confusing. But I see the humor of it. Far more people are listening to me online than are listening on radio and, quite frankly, that’s the contact I’m quite comfortable with at the moment, because it means I can sell tickets to my live shows.
Are you working on your next album?
I’ve been working on it for a while actually. I was recording demos for my second album as I was recording the first album. I really like the opportunity that I have in front of me. I just want more. When I was making my first album, I wouldn’t talk to anyone about it, and I think I’m going to have to keep the same attitude for this one. Even though I’m fucking tempted to go on and on!
Let’s talk about the reaction to your Out cover story.
On our side? There were a lot of people who were just thrilled to see it and hear what you had to say. And we also got a lot of flak, people who said, “How could a magazine called Out put someone on the cover who seems ashamed to admit he’s gay?”
What’s your reaction to that?
Yeah, well, I’m sure you heard that a lot. But I always polarize opinions, whether it’s my private life or the music that I make, and I’ve had to deal with that over the past year. I think that’s been one of the biggest learning curves. I’ve gotten a huge amount of success, but if you had any idea of the amount of flak that I get for the kind of songs that I write or the way that I talk about or refuse to talk about almost any private aspect of my life -- you’d be pretty astonished. And one of the biggest challenges that I’ve had is just saying to myself, You know what? Just stay the same. Stay the way that you are. I can understand that you got polarized opinions. Of course you were going to. That doesn’t surprise me.
Of course there’s ways of discussing sexuality without using labels. I think that if you want to discuss sexuality or just kind of sexual things to begin with, I think there definitely is. I think that’s far more interesting than talking about whether someone is agreeing to or refusing to use labels. I think that’s what your article -- and definitely your [cover] headline [Mika: Gay/Post-Gay/Not Gay?] was getting at.
I’ll talk about my opinions, and I’ll talk about my music, and I’ll write about my opinions or about my personal life stories in my music. I will not talk about labels, and I will not talk about over-categorizing things, because labels are the one thing that I’ve never agreed with -- simply because I just don’t fit into them in my own personal life. And yes, if someone’s willing to have an interesting conversation and take the time and patience to go into stuff like that, then yeah, I think it’s fascinating. But I write songs -- that’s what I do first. I don’t politicize myself or my life, and I am who I am. If you know my lyrics and if you know my songs, you probably know a lot more about me than if you just read an article about me.
No comments:
Post a Comment