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 Married man lives an ordinary life with his missus,
but then leaves all this when he falls in love with another man. Not another episode
of Eastenders, but the B side to Lebanon born singer songwriter
Mika’s latest single. The song in
question is Billy Brown which will appear alongside Relax (Take it easy).
“I had a
suspicion about someone I knew. It’s weird because as soon as started playing
it to people, you’d be surprised how many were like ‘oh my god, you won’t
believe it that happened to someone I know’ or ‘oh my god that happened to my
friend’s parents,” laughs Mika. “I
thought it was completely taboo, I thought it was just a funny little story,
but it seems to have a lot of resonance for a lot of people I know, so maybe
it’s fine”.
Mika’s flamboyant and theatrical style on tracks such
as Grace Kelly has earned him comparisons to Freddie Mercury and naturally the
22 year old is very flattered if a little wary.
“I don’t compare
myself to him because he’s such an amazing musician and singer that it would
probably be suicide,” he says. “But
we did get a nice letter from Brian May commenting on Grace Kelly and he was
like ‘wow what a fantastic bit of work, what a lovely voice, worth making a
fuss about’, so thank you Brian. That was pretty amazing”.
For such a new artist on the block it seems that Mika
has already managed to accumulate the media interest that would have made the
Arctic Monkey’s publicist cry. And it’s
little wonder considering that he has an incredible background story to tell.
Born in Lebanon, Mika was a year old when the family
left the war torn country for Paris
when it became simply too dangerous to hang around. But as Mika explains, his
family have found memories, especially of Beirut
where they’re from.
“The Lebanese
part of my family is very, very prevalent. If walk into my parents’ household
you definitely get the hint of Lebanon everywhere,” he says. “As far as Beirut
was concerned it was an exceptional city like nowhere else in the world that
really managed to combine a lot of Europe and a lot of the Middle
East and people really lived together. So many different cultures
in it and it really created this unique mixed breed and it was reflected in
everything from the food to the architecture to the attitude of the people. I
always wished I could have seen some of that”.
The next few years spent in Paris was, as he puts it, ‘pretty funny’. “We lived in a conservative,
very Parisian neighbourhood and we were we see brogue, loud, English speaking,
and we had a lot of problems with our neighbours.”
When his
father was subsequently taken hostage and held at the American embassy in Kuwait they eventually settled in London. The nine old Mika attended a French state school, and once again
struggled to adjust to his new surroundings.
He had to be taken out of school and relearn to read and write, missing
school for over six months. So why did he find it so hard to fit in?
“I was very
uncompromising about my character. I wouldn’t compromise or tone myself down
for anybody,” he explains. “Kind of
like I don’t now, especially in my music, and that’s the kind of attitude that
really doesn’t go down well at school. I think a lot of kids have that same
problem, it’s a lot harder to stay yourself when everyone is telling you that
that’s the wrong way to be.”
He attended The Royal College Of Music where it
seems his days were something of a juggling act, balancing his studies of
classical music with his passion for pop music.
“They thought I
was going to do classic music, but I had every intention of doing pop music. I
spent my days studying German classical music and Italian opera and in the
evenings I’d be writing and recording pop music, which was where my heart was,”
he reveals. “It gave me something to do
while I didn’t have anything to do. I needed a reason to wake up at nine
o’clock in the morning and make myself busy.”
As for the future, his debut album Life In Cartoon Motion is ready
to be unleashed to the world soon, but Mika’s taking it all in his stride.
“Having a major label deal
obviously means that you have to sell a lot of records, but as far as I’m
concerned that most important thing to me is having a career,”
he says. “I always said that with the
first album the one thing I wanted to get out of that is a career, and I think
I’m setting myself up pretty well for that”.
Relax
(Take It Easy)/ Billy Brown is out on 18th September 2006
For more
info: www.mikasounds.com
Words:
Helen Duong
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one thing .. i wish we can hear some frensh music