Why is Perfume Genius obsessed with demented things?

As a young boy, Mike Hadreas remembers seeing a news report about two kids getting kidnapped in a white van. It was obviously frightening, but Hadreas was also intrigued.

“I kind of started fantasizing about getting kidnapped,” he says.

Ever since, getting into dangerous situations “for the story” has been an attractive prospect for Hadreas, who performs as Perfume Genius.

“I knew I was going to do that when I got older,” he says. “I was, like, ‘I’m going to move to the city, and I’m going to be an alcoholic and an artist.’ … I kind of engaged in a lot of things at first for the story — to be the wild artist that I thought I was, even though I was making zero art. I was just doing a lot of drugs.”
 
Hadreas, now nearly 20 years sober, has adopted a different outlook on life, and his musical storytelling has flourished as a result.

“You can make something really demented without referencing a demented memory that you truly lived through, and you can make something deeply sad and moving without being in that place,” he says.

His latest record follows possibly the least dangerous scenario — albeit dangerous in another sense: As a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Hadreas found himself — for the first time — with nothing to do but reflect on his 15 years of making music.

In today’s session, Hadreas joins us to talk about the album he made in the aftermath of that stillness. Glory is, among other things, a meditation on his career thus far; on death; on his fear of men; and on the stability he’s found with his longtime romantic and creative partner, Alan Wyffels.

Glory also features contributions from New Zealand singer-songwriter Aldous Harding, and producer Blake Mills. We also have exclusive live performances of songs from Glory recorded by our friends at WFUV in New York.

On his experience self-isolating during the COVID-19 pandemic

“I kind of just tanked, honestly. The music is a pretty consistent schedule of energy. You isolate. You write. Then you go into the studio. Then you tour for a year and half. It’s this built-in balance of internal and external.

“Plus, the whole thing is so overwhelming that I haven’t really had a chance to finalize any of my thoughts … I just did it on stage or with the music. I think having that all be on hold, in a way, I just started spiraling and making up for lost time.”

On his anxiety around men and “It’s a Mirror”

“Small talk makes me really nervous, and I think it’s because I’m scared that I’m going to get found out. It’s not that you can’t — with any kind of talk — probably make some assumptions about me pretty quickly that, growing up, got me into trouble and were very apparent from a young age.

“I think I just have this idea that men, in particular, are going to not like me and I need to avoid them for my own safety … I don’t think it actually is true anymore, but if you have an experience when you’re 11 or 8 or whatever, it shapes your worldview … Unfortunately, a lot of things have lasted into my 40s that I probably decided when I was 7 that aren’t true anymore.”

On his love of “disgusting” things

“I think I like when things are off, when they’re imperfect or contain a bunch of things at once; they’re funny and they stink…

“I just like the other side of everything. It’s fun to go there. Somebody sent me a meme they wrote showing a bunch of subject matters from some of my songs, and it was so demented … Like, lesbian cannibalism planet, which is a song that I wrote. Then, giving birth to a demon out of your butt. I did that song too…

“Even though the subject feels very campy or ‘too much,’ I felt a sense of power inside of [those songs]. That’s part of it too — I like making stupid or disgusting things feel powerful and beautiful or worthwhile.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.