Arjan Interviews Mika (+ Free MP3 Download)

June 27, 2007

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What is your life like now that "Grace Kelly" is topping the charts all over the world?
I live like a gypsy! A slightly glamorous gypsy, but not always glamorous believe me.

Are you surprised by the extent of the success? Do you have to pinch yourself every five minutes?
"Grace Kelly" is a powerful song to have as a single, but what is most exciting for me is how the album as a body of work is connecting with so many people in so many different countries around the world. It feels amazing. It is completely surprising and feels very unreal. It hasn't really sunk in yet. It is very hard to sink in when you're at 30,000 ft eighty percent of the time.

Have any particularly unusual things happened to you in your trips around the world?
It is really hard for me to point one, single thing out. My life has been unusual from the age of eleven. I have been lucky enough to have had a quite abnormal life for the majority of my growing up years. Does that make me jaded?

Perhaps.
No, because I'm not. I'm excited about getting a brand-new brand of toothpaste in a little goody bag when I fly. I love it. I collect them now.

Do you like celebrity and fame?
No. That's not important to me. Buying coffee and getting recognized most certainly doesn't make my world spin. It does feel that I've been doing this for a while. I started singing when I was eleven. I've always had such a hard time in every aspect of my life, from academic work, to at home, to the financial situation with the family and moving around all the time. I really got serious about music with my Russian coach. My first gig was at eleven at the Royal Opera House and since then I have been traveling most of my time even when I was in school doing jobs all around Europe. So it does feel I have been doing this for quite a while. But of course it looks like an overnight success even though it was 12 years in the making. What I am getting at is that what I do hasn't changed, only the things around me have changed.

I saw you perform at Coachella and I was impressed that you were able to get die-hard rock fans to bounce to "Grace Kelly." Your music touches all kinds of different people.
You're right. I get 16-year-old goths, drunk 22-year-old pill-poppers, hyperactive 7-year-olds and 40-year-old musos.

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