Perfume Genius: TAS In Session

The raw, devastating intimacy of the music of Mike Hadreas, who works as Perfume Genius, first garnered the Seattle-based singer and songwriter notice with his startling debut, 2010's Learning. His unflinching, vulnerable examination of addiction, despair, sexual abuse and self-discovery remains as vivid on his sophomore album, Put Your Back N 2 It, out now on Matador/Turnstile, but as Hadreas admitted when he visited The Alternate Side last month, there is a more buoyant approach to the music on this record, despite its troubling undertow.

Still, Hadreas encountered an astonishing roadblock earlier this winter when YouTube banned the 16-second promo for Put Your Back N 2 It, a clip taken from the video for "Hood," claiming it violated "adult image policy" because of the imagery of a shirtless Hadreas embracing actor Arpad Miklos. Not only did Hadreas garner the support of fans, music blogs and publications over the kerfuffle, but even Michael Stipe rallied for Perfume Genius, citing YouTube's move as "dumbheaded discrimination" and "disgraceful and cowardly."

Perfume Genius kicks off a North American tour on March 21 in San Francisco, with the trio returning for New York shows on April 3 at Mercury Lounge and April 5 at Glasslands.

When Hadreas dropped by The Alternate Side with bandmate Alan Wyffels, he discussed the YouTube controversy, as well as his approach for his sophomore album. The session airs on TAS on 91.5 WNYE this Friday, March 9 at 11 a.m. EST, also streaming on The Alternate Side. Below, read highlights of the interview and watch exclusive live performances of "Hood," "Seventeen" and "Take Me Home."

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4IcpiIulrU]

Alisa Ali: That song, controversy! But you know what, controversy is kind of a good thing because it brings a lot of attention to you.

Mike Hadreas: Well, way more people saw that ad that was banned on YouTube then [had it been] accepted.

Alisa: Can you describe the controversy?

Mike: I suppose. I made a video and then I made a promo, a pre-rollout ad that’s going to play before other videos, taking scenes from that video I’d made. Just a 16 second clip and it had my album title and [when it comes out]. It had me and another man with our shirts off, embracing. YouTube didn’t think it was family-friendly.

Alisa: So foolish. Not only that, but I read that Michael Stipe found out that your 16-second ad was banned and he spoke out against it.

Mike: It was really cool. One of the very first shows that we played, I think it was the second show, he was there and I very nervously met him, briefly. I was really proud of myself for getting through that second show too so I was kind of out of it.

Alisa: That was 2008?

Mike: 2009, I think? Or 2010.

Alisa: Your first album came out in 2010, but you began uploading videos to MySpace in 2008.

Mike: It was a good while before I played my first show.

Alisa: And how did Los Campesinos!, more friends of yours, discover you?

Mike: Gareth of Los Campesinos! is, in a way, why I have all that I’ve got right now. He’s a big fan of JuJu and if you remember MySpace, I was in their top 8. I was in Juju’s top 8 and I think from clicking around, [Gareth] found me. Pretty crazy.

Alisa: Gareth found you and took you to his record label. Have you played with them?

Mike: We have never played a show together.

Alisa: You have a small setup, just two of you [today]. When you’re touring is it just the two of you?

Mike: There’s one more, [Eric]. He’s on drums and he plays the guitar.

Alisa: So Alan, are you just part of the touring band or were you involved with the recording as well?

Alan Wyffels: Not of the first album. I did some stuff on the second album. I mainly just show up to play the live stuff. That’s mainly what I do.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efQkDp1-kDY]

Alisa: You did a little summary of each of the songs on [this new album]. That’s cool because some musicians are like, “Listen, it means whatever it means to anyone who listens to it.”

Mike: Well, I do kind of feel that way.

Alisa: As listeners, we do want to know the inspiration behind that. That song, you said, was basically a gay suicide letter. As a teenager, you weren’t always interested in listening to songs that were triumphant. You wanted to know that someone felt the same way you feel. I appreciate that too. When I’m depressed the last thing I want to hear is a sugary pop song. Do you think you even have it in you to write [one]?

Mike: Oh, I think I do. For sure. I think it will take some … I’ll have to go through some more sugary pop-like activities to get there (laughs) without mining the bizarre stuff.

Alisa: What is a sugary-pop activity? Amusement rides?

Mike: I like those. Rollercoasters. More of those would be good. We just did it this year. I’d never been to a Six Flags type thing and we went. I was sick for two days. It was worth the recovery time, I think.

Alisa: So you’ll probably get a pop song out of that.

Mike: I’ll see what I can do.

Alisa: When did the writing for this album happen? A good part of 2011 you were touring.

Mike: I’m constantly trying to write. I don’t think we had as severe of a schedule as most bands do because we were new. They were being gentle on us. We had a good month off between tours. Some of [the songs] I wrote pretty quickly after the first [album] was done and some I wrote at home. I even wrote one in the studio. I thought I was very legitimate and very musician-y. I was really excited about it (laughs).

Alisa: I was reading about your progress as a writer and musician and you really didn’t think you could pursue music as a career. Where was the moment that you thought that you could do it?

Mike: I think a lot of that was just committing to it. I don’t think for a really long time in my life, I’ve ever fully committed to something. [I thought] it would trap me or something. I just decided I’m going to finish a song and if it’s crap, then who cares. Before, I’d hold back a lot. Not just in music, but a lot of different things. I was worried about what other people thought. I got over it.

Alisa: What was that song that you wrote?

Mike: It was called “Learning.”

Alisa: Did you just write the lyrics or did you write the music at the same time?

Mike: I started singing and playing it together and then I wrote out the lyrics. It was a marathon thing in a day. Most of my songs are recorded in one day.

Alisa: And you did that at your mom’s house. When you listened back to the tape, what was your reaction to your own first piece?

Mike: When you get older, you’re pretty sure you know exactly what you’re capable of. It was very surprising to me that I could do something that I wouldn’t have even thought of. That keeps happening too.

Alisa: You were living in New York and you moved to Washington to be with your mom. When you were living in New York, were you making music at all? Did you have a piano?

Mike: No, I was drinking. So ….

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS5yX6tCWn8]

Alisa: What’s the story behind the name “Perfume Genius?"  I didn’t get a chance to get close enough to you to smell you.

Mike: It’s not good either, by the way.

Alisa: You’re not doused in perfume?

Mike: Just a touch of deodorant. Lady Mitchum. No, the book, Perfume, is a really good book. The movie is really bad, I think. My friend was watching the movie and she was making fun of the main character and kept calling him an “effin’ perfume genius.” I wasn’t thinking when I picked it, a name that would eventually stick, so that’s what I picked. It eventually stuck. I’m okay with it now, but there wasn’t a lot of thought behind it, to be honest. I wish I would have. If I knew that this would have happened, I probably would have thought a lot about it.

Alisa: What would you have been?

Mike: Something without “genius,” probably (laughs).

Alisa: Earlier, you said you’d written a song [from the new album] in the studio. Which song was that?

Mike: The very last song, called “Sister Song.”

Alisa: What was the process of recording this album? Did you spend a lot of time in the studio? I heard you were in Washington, but did you also record in London? 

Mike: In England. In Bristol and then the countryside in a town that I keep not remembering the name of. I don’t know how other bands do it but we were there a week, maybe two weeks.

Alan: Almost three weeks.

Alisa: What made you decide to switch studios?

Mike: When we got home I listened to the album and it was very slow, naturally. That’s how I do it. But when I was putting all of the songs together, I thought some of the slow ones lost a bunch of weight when they were all next to each other. I wanted to write some poppy, bigger songs to fill it out. It was a fun project, to try to do that.

Alisa: Did you spend a lot of time sequencing it?

Mike: Yeah, I got kind of obsessive about it. And then people are just going to download one song off of it whenever they feel like it. Maybe not. Because my album is really short. It’s like one song, if you want. It’s like an episode of “Friends” in length, you know? (laughs).

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKMwI8-5FAc]

Mike: "Katie" is one of the songs that didn’t make it onto the album. It’s probably the last song I’ve fully written and perhaps it didn’t fit on it. It’s fun to play for me. It’s not fun at all, actually. It’s one of the heaviest songs that I’ve written. It’s not fun. But sometimes “fun” for me is feeling like I threw up afterwards.