Pop icon MIKA exploded onto the global stage with his debut UK No. 1 single “Grace Kelly” in 2007. His debut album Life in Cartoon Motion has put up some staggering numbers: 2.8 billion streams, 8.3 million albums sold, and 12.8 million digital tracks, topping charts in 12 countries.
I first met MIKA a couple years later in Montreal – a city he loves – when he launched his 2009 album The Boy Who Knew Too Much. His handlers warned me to avoid personal questions and stick to the music. Of course, to the surprise of no one, MIKA publicly came out in 2012, and his happiness and songwriting are richer for it.
Born Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr., MIKA also loves reality TV, and has been a judge on X Factor Italy, a coach on The Voice France, and in the UK will soon film the fourth season of The Piano, mentoring amateur musicians who perform spontaneously on train-station concourse pianos.
The just-released Hyperlove is MIKA’s first English-language studio album since 2019. The record marks both a reinvention and a return: his new songs were composed on the white chipboard piano he salvaged from a shuttered rental company the day he was expelled from his school in Paris as a child.
During our candid Q&A, MIKA would play that very same piano, play a few bars of his exquisite new single “Immortal Love” — “It’s just immortal love / There’s just immortal love / We are immortal love” — that he wrote about his beloved 16-year-old golden retriever Melachi who died four days before our interview.
But on this day MIKA was in good spirits, and looking forward to headlining Place Bell in Laval on May 4, on his worldwide Spinning Out Tour.
Why did you go back to your piano to create your new album?
MIKA: I needed to. I needed to find a way to write with the least amount of filter possible. You know, I’m very grateful for filters in my life – it certainly makes my selfies a lot more palatable! But you don’t want that in your writing. I was 40 when I started writing this album. I make pop music. I have an alternative structure to my entire bloody career. I have conversations in different languages across different countries. I tour around the world. I write in different languages. I love art, I love books, I love cooking, I love reality television. I must allow myself to evolve as an artist in the right way, and to do that I need to have my artistic compass as clear as possible. The only way that I could orientate that compass and write without filters was to write at the piano.
The genesis of your new album began not in a pop studio, but in a symphonic hall.
MIKA: I was writing symphonic music without words, without singing, working with musicians from the Paris Opera. They’re phenomenal players! The joy of writing music without the traditional destination of the DSP (Digital Signal Processors) was liberating. I found myself reconnected with this version of me that studied at the Royal College of Music, listening to CDs from Kurt Weill to Cole Porter. It was so joyful and so free. It was just ideas and ideologies and music. I asked myself, “How do I get back to that feeling?” Assume your artistic responsibility. Be faithful and honour the spirit of that version of you at 18-years-old.
I especially enjoy the closing track “Immortal Love” on your new album.
MIKA: On the album I talk about sex, about violent sex, about dreams and nightmares, trying to reconnect with this idea of a free soul, a free spirit. I get to the end of the thing and I’ve got this gorgeous melody, but I don’t have any words. Then my dog Melachi comes in and looks at me, and I’m like, “I’m such a fucking idiot, the answer was in front of me the entire time!” Melachi is as poetic and as important as every other person or situation I’ve written about. She was looking at me so simply. That’s the reason why it’s important, because this energy and feeling is immortal. And within that immortality is the sublime. I just wanted to capture that feeling. I’m so happy that it took a dog to make me realize something so important.
Last December on Instagram you posted, “From Madrid to one of my favourite creative hubs, Montreal – where we are building the visual world for the new tour! It was only a 24 hour visit but so, so worth it!” What were you doing in Montreal?
MIKA: So two-thirds of the album was recorded in Montreal, and the animators that I’m working with on this tour are all based in Montreal as well. There is so much creativity and talent in Montreal. In December I flew in to film in Montreal. I was there for like 19 hours, and we did an 11-hour shoot. It was tiring but worth it.
There’s something I love about being in Montreal. I love the double language. I can relate to it personally because you’ve got the Franco thing, then you’ve got the North American thing. It’s a city that’s worth defending, worth protecting its core values because it’s quite unique in the world. And sometimes I don’t think people realize how unique it is.
When I first came out, I quickly learned that coming out is a lifelong journey. Because of your fame, has that aspect of your journey been different? Do you still have to come out to people?
MIKA: I think every single person finds themselves coming out over and over again. Also, there’s this thing where if you’re in a relationship with a person for a long time, even your own family and friends can fall into a trap of not considering you like another couple, a heterosexual couple. Some things afforded to heterosexual couples are not immediately given to non-heterosexual couples. A person may say, “It’s okay for you guys to be apart from each other. He won’t mind that you’re not there on Friday night.” Would you say that if I was married to a woman? It’s like a gay man is only really actively gay when he’s out there having a crazy night, hooking up with different people all the time. But that’s a different thing altogether. It’s a part of it, but gay life is not only that. When people forget that, they’re being quite hurtful.
Are you a gay artist, or an artist who happens to be gay?
MIKA: Sometimes one, sometimes more the other. Do not define yourself. Follow your spirit. And at some points, it’s a lot more fun to just be an artist who happens to be gay because what you’re dealing with doesn’t actually orientate from political or sexual motivations. And when it does, that’s fucking awesome too! We are a community that is defined by non-definition, that is the one thing that unifies us as a community, and we cannot forget that.
INFOS | Visit https://evenko.ca to purchase tickets for MIKA’s Spinning Out Tour at Place Bell on May 4. Mika’s new album, Hyperlove, was released on January 23, 2026. It is his seventh studio album and his first in English since 2019.
