The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
‘I’m not going to be told to keep quiet’
When Mika’s chart-topping career in Britain ‘staggered to a halt’, he learnt to embrace Europe instead
Are we ready for the second coming of Mika? The extravagantly gifted singer-songwriter is headlining the opening night of the Cheltenham Jazz Festival on April 26, his first UK concert outside London in 10 years. The 39-year-old’s role as a judge in the hit Channel 4 reality show The Piano has put him back in the eye of the British public, although a jazz festival is probably not where you would expect to find this purveyor of flamboyantly eccentric pop.
“I’ve spent my whole career in places where I don’t necessarily belong,” Mika laughs. “I play electronic festivals where I’m the only non-electronic act, and jazz festivals where everyone else is playing jazz repertoire. I kind of love that. I think it’s about the ways you interpret your material, to be creative with the way you perform.”
But is it jazz? “Is it pop?” counters Mika, playfully. “What even is pop anymore, does anyone know? I’m too busy trying to make things and find my way through the s--show of having a career in a f---edup world.”
Back in the Noughties, Mika was on top of the pop pile, a bravura showman in the style of Elton John, singing exuberant songs with witty lyrics in a voice that could surge from sweet tenor to glass-shattering falsetto. His 2007 single Grace Kelly was a number-one smash in the UK, and his debut album, Life in Cartoon Motion, sold more than five million copies worldwide. But the moment didn’t last. Mika scored five top 10 hits in a row, then quickly faded, each of his subsequent albums registering declining impact and sales, at least here in the UK. You might have heard he was big in Belgium, popular in France and presenting shows on Italian television. But he was no longer part of the British pop firmament.
“I don’t understand what happened,” he admits. “I can sell out arenas in Europe and South Korea, but things staggered to a halt in Britain.”
I wonder if Mika was just too much for the mainstream space he had almost accidentally stumbled into, too camp, too arty, too needy. There is a certain desperation about his biggest hit, with its repeated refrain of “Why don’t you like me?”
Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr had a privileged but peripatetic upbringing, born in Beirut to an often absent Israeli-American businessman father and LebaneseAmerican mother, raised in Paris and London, attending Westminster School and the Royal College of
Music. He struggled with dyslexia, bullying and insecurity about his sexual orientation. “Grace Kelly was written at 11 o’clock at night in my bedroom. It was made in a very artisanal, handmade way, out of a pure desire to feel OK about who I was. That’s what all the music came out of, the absolute desire not to have the s--- beaten out of me.”
He describes the disruptive experience of being “catapulted” into stardom. He was circumspect in public about his sexuality and felt the UK media’s fascination was prurient and hostile. “People were assholes, people were cruel, using it almost in a destructive way. All these issues of sexuality and identity that you deal with as a kid are still with you, and there was no sensitivity or kindness or respect in the way it was handled.” He did not come out publicly as gay until he was 29 and in a relationship with his long-term partner, the Greek filmmaker Andreas Dermanis. “I like to think that the world has changed. Definitely, from a media perspective, there has been positive change, although social media is still a law unto itself.”
Mika is speaking to me via Zoom from his home in Miami, a palatial 100-year-old Spanish-style villa that he bought a decade ago in a state of collapse (“it was built out of cement made from beach sand and the whole thing was caving in”) and has painstakingly renovated with family and friends into something he describes as “a living art project”. Every room is intricately hand-painted, with hand-crafted furnishings, to house a recording studio, art studios and film-editing suite. “Money would run out, everything would stop, and I’d have to go and do a job to get things moving again. It took way too long and cost way too much, but it’s a beautiful, crazy place, full of little dream bubbles dedicated to making things.”
As his career cooled in Britain, Mika focused on international territories where his music still resonated. “I’m not going to be told to keep quiet, or just disappear, why would I do that? I decided to keep moving, and find a different altitude, where maybe the air and temperature were better suited to me.”
He started building a television career, hosting shows in France and Italy. “Our biggest challenge in the arts is the constant ‘no’, all your ideas being shot down in two seconds. You have to find a way to balance your artistic dreams with a certain kind of visibility. I decided to start making television to give myself the slightest possibility of my musical projects being realised.
You have to fight for it. It’s part of the process of a true artistic career.”
I think the whole of Britain was surprised when Mika popped up presenting Eurovision in Italy last year. “I love Eurovision. I’m American, I’m Lebanese, I’m European, I was brought up and educated in France and England. In the most lofty sense, Eurovision is not just an entertainment show, it is an exercise in universality.”
Britain’s entry this year is sung by Mae Muller, who made her debut aged nine as the cute child in Mika’s Grace Kelly video. “Oh, that’s not her claim to fame, the poor girl, give her a break,” Mika protests on her behalf. “I don’t think people in the UK realise how big her success has been in other places. She’s got an enormous hit in the States [with 2021 nu disco banger Better Days]. It’s one of those songs you hear so much, you don’t want to hear it anymore.” All he will say about her slick, poppy Eurovision entry I Wrote a Song is that “it’s optimised for streaming. It’s very clever.” Following Ukraine’s Eurovision victory in 2022, this year’s contest will be staged in Liverpool in May, due to safety concerns. “There’s all sorts of interesting issues of Britain and the EU in the mix, and how the BBC navigate hosting in the name of another country that is a warzone. I’m looking forward to it.”
Of all the things he has done, Mika suggests that The Piano, conceived by Great British Bake Off producer Richard McKerrow and hosted by Claudia Winkleman, is among the most random. “We just showed up, and Rich was like, ‘I had this great idea in the pub, so let’s make a TV show.’”
Mika himself was trained as a classical pianist, but confesses, “I really don’t like the idea of ‘classical music’. We should be talking about music in terms of excellence, who is doing something interesting, something that could provoke emotion. Whether it’s jazz, rap, experimental electro, Shostakovich or Scarlatti, it’s all part of our collective history. It’s not about lifestyle, it’s not about subsets and genres, it’s about your nature, how you feel. Music is kind. And it’s there for you. And it’s free.”
Mika’s most recent project was a film score for the French movie Princes of the Desert (released in France in February), on which he worked with the Paris Philharmonic Orchestra and Berber musicians from Morocco. “’Cause I’m a weirdo, I spent seven months on a symphonic soundtrack instead of making sure I had an English single when I was on air with The Piano.” He has also been working on his first French-language album, and a new English album constructed around piano loops and samples. “So, yeah, basically a record company’s worst nightmare. But that’s OK, ’cause I end up playing jazz and electronic music festivals. I can survive. Kind of.”
‘Eurovision is not just an entertainment show. It’s an exercise in universality’