Mika Interview,22-7-09

Mika: hello, how are you doing? Woman: So, we’re gonna start with a fact sheet. Full name Mika: My full name? Ohh, that’s not nice (?)...my name is Mika. Woman: Age? Mika: H stands for...ahm...I’ve never said what H stands for...actually it’s Holbrook (translator: no the age (in German), woman: in any case not 30 yet, Mika carries on about his name LOL ) Mika: And, but, you know what, my real name, my legal name is Michael. But ever since i was a little boy, since my father’s also called Michael, my mother decided that i would be called Mika. I used to live in Paris and people called my Michaél. So that’s how the abreviations came about. When I was six months my mum started calling my Mika because my mum didn’t like the name Michael. Woman: What languages do you speak? Mika: I speak English, French, and some Spanish, and my German is terrible, I studied German at school for 2 years. (so waht about Arab Mika???) woman: What do you remeber in German? Mika: I actually only remember Goethe poetry, the lyrics I had to learn for these German lieder. I was at uni studying music, and already studied music as a child, sand that’s why i remeber this. It’s all pretty useless what i remeber, it’s classical things, I’m completely lost if I have to order coffee for example. Woman: What are your hobbies apart from music? Mika: Ahm, I like to draw, I actually, I love illustration, I like theatre, but I guess I’m a musiscian because i like theatre. That’s how it all started. Even as a kid I already liked theatre. There are many strange things that i like to do. Well, I collect scents. Woman: Ok. Mika: Yeah, but they’re not all good smells. I have about 140 little bottles at home – all filled with different scents. They don’t all contain good smells like oils or flowers, but also things like tarmac or plastic. I think it’s very intersting and I don’t know why. I have the same attitudes towards music. It’s jsut all abou memories. I think music as just as interesting as scents. Woman: Then I’ll invite you to come to our open-plan office at 30 degrees (celcius). There you’ll get to know many scnets/smells. Your favourite place to live? Mika: My favourite place to live is London. However, that would be my kind of base. I’m looking somewhere to have my own house. Woman: the most important single for you? Mika: Ahm, it would probably be...

Woman. That takes a long time... Mika: It’s hard. It’s gonna be something pop. As a single you mean? Woman: One of yours. Mika: One of mine? No, I’m not gonna talk about my music. You know what? Unashamedly pop. Either ahm “Like a prayer” or something like “When dogs cry” by Prince. Woman. So alegedly your vocal ranges is 5 octaves. What’s the deepest note you can sing? Mika: I suppose my octaves are not 5 octaves. Then I’d by just like the alien from the Fifth element. It’s more than normal men’s. But my lowest tone...Well, I was actaully singing baritone when I was a t uni. Woman: Give us a demonstration of your lowest tone. Mika: Noooo. It’s probably like that bit. (in a deep voice) Woman: And the highest note? Mika: I don’t know (in a high-pitched voice). Well actually, I sing just like I speak Ahhhhhhh... Woman: One of our listeners once wrote:”When Mika is singing my tooth inlays are falling out!” What do you think about that? Mika: I don’t know if that’s an insult or if it’s a very starnge compliment. Or this person schould go and get a better dentist. Woman: Of course he’s not here without a piano. We have goten the special Mika piano so that he can play. The current new single “We are golden”. Mika unplugged now here at WDR2. (Mika and Martin playing WAG) woman: WAG unplugged performed live by Mika here at our studio. If you listeners at home wanna know how this man looks like: dark curls, dark eyes, a shirt, white pants, dark trainers Mika: awww, look at my shoes. Woman: Wow! Now what kind of shoes are that? They do look dangerous. There are spikes. Mika: They’re the only ones in the world. And the shoemaker from France made me these shoes for dancing. Danging shoes so that I could stand on the points. But he now does have different models. He usually only makes shoes fro women. But now he’s thinking about selling men’s shoes, too. I think it’s pretty cool what he’s doing. That he’s now selling shoes that were originally designed for me. Woman: What is that figure around your neck? Mika: It’s from a Begian designer. His name is Walther van Berendonk (?). And this is a selfportrait of him. He gave this to me as a self-portrait. And these are prayer perls. I f you wish for something or if you’re praying you hag one of these things on the necklace. Unfortunatelly I have only one here. But at home I have a whole box of them. Woman: He does have a lot. He also has a second album out soon. The first one was sold 6 million times. Mika, for doing this second album you had taken an apartment in LA, terminated the

tenacy for your flat in London, but then your mum interferred. You shouldn’t make it that easy for yourself. What did she wanna say with that? Mika: Well, actually when I wrote the album in London, it’s been about 6 months, I was at a studio composing. And just like it was for the first album I took a flight to LA to finish it over there. I had the same team for the production. But I didn’t wanna live in the same apartment. I was on tour for two years and a half, it all worked well and then I was telling myself that I could now yet me something really nice in LA since I was about to live there for 6 months, so I wanted to live there comfortably. I found a very good-looking house, very nice, it had a small garden, a lovely neighbourhood, it had 3 or 4 bedrooms so all my friends could come and visit me. I was very happy with the situation. Two days before I left to LA my mother found out about this without me knowing. And she normally doesn’t do things like that. But she cancelled absolutelly everything without me knowing. And so I was back in the same apartment as for the first album. She knows I’m so superstitious. And she put a little speell on me. She said the more money you spend on the second album adn for yourself while doing this album the worse it is gonna be. And when this was stuck on my head for once I mean, yeah, I started doing the other extreme. Woman: What influence does your mum have on you? Mika: Well, you know I think she had had a lot of influence on me as a kid. When I was younger. I’m a musician since the age of 12. I was thrown out of school and I had a lot of academic difficulties at school. So when I left school I didn’t really know what I could do and what I wanted to do. My education was a desaster. My formation, too. So my mother told the government, the local council, that I wasn’t going to school for nice months and then she taught me things a t home. And I worked a lot with my Russian singing teacher. So that’s when I started learnig about music. Every day I was 3 or 4 hours with my mum and I additionally studies music. It was very difficult but I made it. Then, I waent again to school and i had my first job at the Royal Opera house singing a Strauss opera. So it was good that my mother was there. She saw that I needed something. Otherwise I would have enede up as a complete mess. She thought if she didn’t do anything now I would be a complete chaotic person, she thought I could either do something special or end up in jail, nothing in between. Woman: Up til now you still got your family around you, even now you’re a popstar. All of your siblings are working with you. What are they doing? Mika: My siblings, we all work together. Well, not all. One of my sisters does all of the art work, and the graphics or illustrations and draws me things for the album. My other one is a stylist. She also does some PR work for me. The other two are actually at school. The one is studying fashion in China, and the other one is gonna ba an architect. So it’s actually a mix. But I like being around my siblings. Everybody thinks that if yours working with your siblings it’s peaceful and happy, like a family. But in fact it’s quite cruel. We’re arguing a lot and I guess we’re even arguing every single day. But it’s very honest. And this honesty is very healthy in a job situation such as mine. Woman: You seem to be a very grounded person, apart from your shoes. Do you think that is important to be successful as a popstar? Mika: Yeah, my shoes. They are the only ones in the world. Woman: Is ist important to be grounded as a popstar, to be successful? Mika: Actually I’m so cheap I would never ever buy these shoes. These are custom-made shoes by Christian Louboutin. And shoes by him are like 10.000 euros. And I’d never in a million years spend so much money on shoes. That’s crazy. But since he’s friends with me they’re free. So it’s fine. Woman: But being grounded and a bit cheap, of what importance are these characteristics to be

successful in the long run as a musician? Mika: Oh, I don’t know. That’s difficult to say. I don’t know what other musicians do. But I know that I came from a kind of place where there was no place for me in pop music. No place for me on radio. So i decided that if I was gonna make it with my own music, i would do it in my own way. That I would have to do it 100% the way I could do it. I was in my own bubble. But I had the faith and the strenghth to keep to my ideals. I wasn’t alone. I knew that there would be people who would understand me. And it seems to have worked til now. I mean I’m down to the ground but then again I’m not. I kind of bubble myself. I guess the most important thing is to always respect the crafts of songwriting. And I think in the morning when you wake up, and no matter how big the show is, to sit down the next day, have breakfast and write a song. There’s nothing that would make this process more human. I’m very difficult to work with. If you asked people who worked with me they’d probably say that I’m the worst (musician) they have ever met or else they’ll stay with me/work with me for years. There’s nothing in between. And most of them stay with me for a very long time. And I prefer that. That’s my favourite method. Woman: Mika has been very nice here in our studio. Not very hard to talk to. And because he was the first celb to have taken a pic of me I’ll give hime a present in exchange. A personal gift, a conditioner for curly hair. From us. Mika: Thank you very very much. Woman: And in return I would like you to sign this WDR2 collection cup with this nice pen,,, Mika: I haven’t washed my hair in about three weeks. Woman: but your hair is still looking good. It’s a bit shiny, now I know why. Mika: Yes, they are shiny. It washes itself. Woman: If you sign this WDR2 cup we will make a draw tomorrow in WDR2’s morning show. The listeners will be happy. Mika: Alright. Sure. Woman: Draw something nice. You seem to be a creavtive person. We wish you all the best with your album and your music. Stay the way you are. It’s fun with you. Thank you, Mika.