An interview with Perfume Genius

With a piano, synthesizer, some drum beats and a couple polished fingernails, Perfume Genius (A.K.A. Mike Hadreas) released his sophomore album Put Your Back N2 It in February. The album represents Genius’s growth from desire to determination since the release of his first album, Landing, in 2010. He is touring the U.S. throughout October.

Will Dowsett: The vibe of the album is definitely more optimistic than your first one. One song, “Dark Parts,” written about your mom, seems extra special.

Mike Hadreas: Surviving things, like abuse or addiction or things that are personal like that, you feel like people are clapping for you all the time. I think it needs to be like that. But I wanted to write something for my mom just to let her know how much I respect her for her survival because it’s taught me what to do in a lot of places. I’m just really thankful for that.

WD: You didn’t have a very great past, either, before you released your first album. Is it easy to embrace that, or is it more of a personal struggle?

MH: I guess it’s a little bit of both. I think that even if I’m struggling now or coming to terms with things and trying to be real about it, at least whatever pain I have … it’s really what I’m supposed to feel. Before when I was like drinking and stuff, it was all bulls—, really. It’s personal, and your world is really small, like you’re not really dealing with anything at all.

WD: There are a large number of LGBTQ students at BU. Do you have any advice from personal experience to share?

MH: You mean to be helpful [laughs]? I came out when I was 15, and I was the only “out” person at my high school, which is not the easiest thing. But I didn’t feel like I really had a choice. I didn’t want to hide any percentage of myself. People were always talking to me like “only gay people are gonna listen to you, people aren’t gonna relate to you … blah, blah, blah.” But, people relate to you when you just are honest and just do you. Don’t print that I said, “Do you!” I can’t believe that I actually said that (laughs).

WD: You feature your boyfriend on one of the tracks (“Put Your Back N2 It”). Was that special? Well, obviously it was special — what was it like?

MH: [Laughs] It’s very dramatic — but I wrote this song for him before we were together, and I had him sing it with me before he knew it was about him. I eventually told him it was about him. I just really wanted to have a song that was a love song between two men and have two men singing together. Maybe that exists somewhere else, but I’ve never heard something sweet like that before.

WD: YouTube rejected the promotional video for your new album (which shows Hadreas and another man holding each other). Was that hard to see happen?

MH: Well, I came out pretty young in high school, so I learned pretty early that some people don’t like that. For no reason, for something you have no control over, people just don’t like you. And so I really wasn’t that surprised when something I thought was very sweet and not controversial at all was suddenly not family friendly … But not being surprised about it is the saddest part.

WD: The xx have mentioned you on multiple occasions as music that they’re listening to right now. Are there certain artists whose opinions you value or who inspire you more than others?

MH: They’re one of them. It’s always nice to have people like your music. I haven’t been making music for that long, so I sometimes think, “Wait, am I even a musician?” [laughs]. And then to hear other people who you respect like your music, it feels like — I don’t know — it feels really good.