ARTISTʼS PROFILE Mike Hadreas Is Perfume Genius

COLIN CARMAN MH: Thanks. I remember buying Liz mood in mind for how things should look. Phair’s Whip-Smart with my babysitting For “Grid,” I had this idea of pulsating O FAMILY is safe when I money. Then I went back and bought her dancers around me. It ends up being more a sashay,” sings Mike Hadreas, [1993 debut] Exile in Guyville. collaboration with the director. With both of “Notherwise known as “Perfume those videos, everybody’s crazy ideas are Genius,” on “Queen,” the haunting first CC: What was the first openly gay song jumbled into a dream sequence. That’s how single on the new album Too Bright. The that you wrote? Has your sexuality always I like it. video for “Queen” is the deranged been part of your songwriting? lovechild of Fellini and Waters, a bizarre MH: When I first started writing, it was just CC: What about the song “I’m a Mother,” escapade in which the 32-year-old Hadreas writing for me. There were gay themes be- which sounds to me like the most gothic cruises an Elvis impersonator with a pros- cause I’m a gay person. So it wasn’t a delib- song on Too Bright? Where did that come thetic leg only to jump off a rooftop. De- erate statement, at first. With the new from? pending on your interpretation, Hadreas album, I knew more people were going to MH: My boyfriend and I have been to- either dies or metamorphoses into a cheer- hear it, so it was important to me to be spe- gether for five years and I want a house. He leader. The video for “Hood,” from 2012’s cific and explicit and direct. It was powerful really wants kids, which is not something I PutYourBackN2It, became somewhat in- for me, and I hoped it would be powerful ever thought about. It’s the same thing with famous after the bearish porn star Arpad for people to hear it. I have a sense of duty marriage. Because I’m fairly dramatic, I Miklos, who cradles Hadreas and brushes about that. began thinking about weirder questions, like his hair, later died in an apparent suicide. why we can’t just have a child and what’s Too Bright, co-produced by Portishead’s CC: Why Perfume Genius? It’s kind of an driving me to have sex with him if I’m not Adrian Utley, has garnered critical acclaim, audacious name, no? looking for a healthy father for my child. including from Rolling Stone, which ranked MH: When I first started writing my songs, There’s nothing coming from our sex, and it among 2014’s best albums (“shifting there’s nothing wrong with that. Then from theatrical indie pop one minute to there are sad things like my mom mak- pitch-black electronic music the next”), ing baby things for her grandchild. to The New Yorker, which evoked That song raised nice, sweet questions. everyone from John Keats to Rufus But instead I shared a weirder, achier Wainwright in its praise. Too Bright is feeling about giving birth without my indeed a stroke of genius: melodic, boyfriend, without anyone, on my own melancholic, and totally original. in a dark pit. While on tour, Hadreas spoke with me by telephone from Seattle, which CC: One recurring theme on the album happens to be his home town. is the body and corporeality. How does the body matter, and do you think, as Colin Carman: I think your piano gays and lesbians, our relationship with playing is especially good on “No Good” I intended to just share them with some our bodies is different than that of straights? (a song from Too Bright). When did you friends. Then I made a MySpace profile to MH: Sure. For me, when people started first discover music and the piano? put my songs up, and I didn’t give it any catching on, around the seventh grade, that I Mike Hadreas: I started playing piano thought. It was just gibberish. I don’t mind it was different and giving me side-eyes, I be- around six or seven and very much because and I like the way the words look together. came extremely self-aware about how I I wanted to. I wasn’t forced into it. Even came across. That became more important though I loved playing, I was a very bad CC: Your new album sounds different in to me than how I actually felt. That can student. I eventually found a teacher who many ways from your debut, Learning, twist into an obsession with your body and wasn’t fed up with me. I didn’t start making from 2010, and the follow-up, Put Your face. It becomes an easy place to go. fully formed songs until not that long ago, Back N 2 It. Is it the great leap forward that really, not long before I released my first the music press makes it out to be? CC: How do you stay healthy and well-ad- album. MH: I didn’t think of it as a grand depar- justed while on tour? ture, but I understand the need to market it MH: I don’t! I treat myself like shit, but I CC: What were your earliest musical like that. For me, I was just shaking up my put really expensive cream on myself. It’s influences? own limitations. I thought, well, I’m really horrible. I don’t exercise. I smoke. I eat like MH: Growing up, I identified with things going to go for it, so I started screaming, shit. But then I detox with a coconut water my parents listened to, like Leonard Cohen. improvising, writing over distortion and or research some $200 exfoliant. When I was a teenager, I became obsessed noise. I just stopped being locked behind with a lot of badass women like Liz Phair piano chords. I took everything more seri- CC: Last question: Madonna or Lady Gaga? and Fiona Apple. Deadly serious ladies. PJ ously: recording, instruments, live shows. MH: Oh, Madonna. Actually, I cover Sade’s Harvey, for sure. “By Your Side” and Madonna’s “Oh Fa- CC: The videos for “Queen” and “Grid” are ther,” which was a non-hit for her: depress- CC: Congratulations on landing Matador surreal. Did you enjoy making the videos? ing and dark. Records as a label, once home to pioneering MH: When I first started making music, I indie-rock acts like Liz Phair, Yo La Tengo, would make my own videos for each song. Colin Carman teaches British and American and Pavement. Even when I’m writing, I have a visual literature at Colorado Mesa University.

46 The Gay & Lesbian Review / WORLDWIDE