The Big Interview: Her.ie Meets the Marvellous Mika

He rose to fame with songs including Grace Kelly and Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) but Mika hasn’t been around for a few years. That is, until now!

The singer has returned to launch another attack on the pop charts with his new album entitled The Origin of Love. It’s an album and a moment that the singer admits took a long time to come.

“I had to live a bit because I’d been on the road for four years and put out two albums and so subsequently I didn’t know how to write again without thinking of anything. I was always thinking of what people were going to think of my songs and all that stuff and so I needed to liberate myself.

“I needed to be back to that 16-year-old who was writing music because it was his medicine. And it took a long time to get to that stage. So I kind of had a block for over a year and a half. Then I just lived a bit of life and it hit me over the head and lots of things happened.

“Relationships, words and my sister had this insane accident which I witnessed. It was like having my head passed through a tumble-dryer and that was the start of the restructuring and reconnecting with that fearlessness that I needed to have. It’s funny how something that tragic can have the kind of first step towards such a joyful record.”

Mika's first single from the album is called Celebrate.

And that’s not the only life-defining moment the chart-topper has had. Earlier this year, he made the announcement that he was gay.

“I always said that I would deal with the more political side of my sexuality at my own pace and at a time that I felt I could deal with it from a truly positive place. Sexuality and my sexuality has always been in my music. It’s always been in who I am and in my way of life but by labelling something, you immediately politicise it and I was going to do that on my own terms and when I’d bloomed a bit.

“So when I did it, I said to myself imagine you’re speaking to the 14-year-old version of yourself who doesn’t know the way out and feels the weight on his shoulders and doesn’t know the way out of how he’s feeling. I felt nervous because it was important but I didn’t feel any fear whatsoever and that’s how I knew I was doing the right thing.”

Back in the old days in the Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) video.

But both of these life-changing moments lead to his new album which Mika says is about the quest for happiness and love: “The album is really a 29-year-old sitting down and saying I’m going to destroy my ego, destroy my sense of track record, find fantasy and absurdity in everyday life and maybe I’ll find out how to be happy as I grow up and be an adult.

“Because if I keep that sense of wonder and that sense of awe, and maybe appreciate the absurd, then maybe I can be happy and maybe I can find love.” But it’s not a record that’s full of big ballads and slow-tempo tunes.

“You know I said how about doing 12 love songs but not a single one of them sounds like a Celine ballad. They’re all very modern takes on a very old concept,” the singer explains before revealing that he has always been inspired by the old and the new.

“I come from a classical background but I’m also obsessed with that golden age of pop writing like Fleetwood Mac, Bee Gees, early Elton John that appeared in the 70s where credible artists were making melodic pop music, artist-driven pop music, music that you could imagine them liking themselves. You know, not for someone else but for themselves.

“So it’s a combination of 70s pop writing, classical symphonic music and electronica that I like. And those three things are the three things that come together on this album.” However there are some modern artists that he would relish the opportunity to work with.

“I really would like to work with either Regina Spektor or Sia (who featured on David Guetta’s Titanium) but my dream collaboration would really be someone like Bjork.” Now that is one duet we would love to see!

Mika said he would love to work with Regina Spektor.

As much as Mika enjoys listening to songs by other people, he admits that he doesn’t listen to his own stuff: “I don’t listen to my own records, even the new stuff. Now that it’s done, it’s done, I move on. It doesn’t belong to me anymore.”

But he will have to perform them for his tour which kicks off at the end of the month. It’s a tour that he can’t wait to get going: “I like touring because now I have more new songs to play and songs that I’m proud of and that will work live.”

Although Irish fans will have to wait until next year to see the pop star who confessed he has a soft spot for them: “They’re hot-blooded and hard-core. When they love something they tell you and when they want you to move on they tell you. I can handle that because the best show for me is when the audience is 50% so playing for an audience like an Irish one is the perfect match.”

Mika’s new album, The Origin of Love, is available to buy now.