Ever since his debut in 2010, Mike Hadreas has taken his Perfume Genius project to a new level with each release. Even so, Hadreas had a very good 2017. His new album No Shape is his best yet and was one of our favorite albums of the year. Like its predecessor Too Bright, it finds Hadreas expanding his sound into fuller, more dramatic places. It's an album that's pained and dreamy and haunting and gorgeous at various turns, with some of the most unusual but also unshakeable melodies of the year. It's one of those albums that makes you grateful to be along for the ride as a particular artist ascends, bit by bit.
Last month, I went to Utrecht for the experimental-leaning Le Guess Who? fest, where Hadreas was performing and serving as one of the lineup's curators. Knowing that beyond being responsible for one of the great 2017 releases, Hadreas was also a wry and witty observer of pop culture, I met up with him one afternoon to talk about his 2017, and 2017 as a whole. Now, given: This year was mostly complete and infuriating garbage. It's not quite as light-hearted, doing these end-of-year interviews anymore. But, I'd like to think there can be some temporary antidote in revisiting the last 11 months and recalling the good things that did happen, or at least having a cathartic laugh about the truly stupid things that happened. As expected, Hadreas is a great guy to talk to if that's what you're looking for.
STEREOGUM: Too Bright got its fair share of accolades and heightened your profile, but it feels even more substantial with No Shape. What has this year felt like for you? Does it feel like Perfume Genius has gotten bigger?
MIKE HADREAS: I don’t know if I’ll be able to fully process it until it’s done. Right now, I kind of just do everything. I pay attention while I’m doing it and I put a lot of my spirit into it, but I’m not fully aware of what’s going on. [laughs] A lot of it somewhat anxiety-producing, so if you pay too much attention to it then it becomes too real. I gotta be able to do it still, so I have to detach a little bit. But I got to work with so many people that, maybe a few years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to. The artwork, the videos, my producer Blake [Mills]. Everything just feels a little more amplified, and I’ve gotten to go for it completely. Before, we’d have some vague ideas or things I wanted to do, and I’d make my version of them, but it was never fully-realized. I feel like with this, I’d have ideas andI could make them happen.
STEREOGUM: Right, not that the last one didn’t have hints of this, but it does feel like a very ambitious phase. I mean, the show was already getting bigger compared to when it was just you and a piano.
HADREAS: Oh, yeah, worlds different. Towards the end of touring [Too Bright], the show was very different than when we first started singing the songs. Same with this album. When I first started touring the songs, I feel like the show was much different. It feels a little more 360, with the dancing. I feel more comfortable.
STEREOGUM: How did curating Le Guess Who? come about?
HADREAS: We played the festival before, and when [the festival's co-founder] Bob [Van Heur] asked me to curate, I was worried because a lot of the people I would’ve asked to play played last time. [laughs] Because we have very similar tastes. He still let us invite them all back again. I think we just got along and I think he understands and responds to where I’m coming from. We both are looking for music that’s coming from ... not the exact same place that I do, but just sort of the same kind of catharsis or intensity. There’s a million different filters for how that ends up sounding eventually, but that’s essentially what I want.
STEREOGUM: How complicated are those logistics, you have your wishlist and then the booking --
HADREAS: I have no idea. [laughs] I submit the list. I didn’t hold back. He encouraged that. Just put people that are your friends or that you know would maybe be able to do it, but also just put anyone you’d ever want. That’s why I put a Bulgarian women’s choir and Mary Margaret O’Hara. It would be a dream of mine to see it, but I wasn’t certain if they toured or played live.
STEREOGUM: All right now I want to ask you about some random 2017 stuff. Did you like “Bad And Boujee” by Migos?
HADREAS: I don’t really know it.
STEREOGUM: Do you have a song of the year?
HADREAS: Hmmm, when did Anti- come out?
STEREOGUM: Last year.
HADREAS: [laughs] When I’m writing, I don’t listen to music at all.
STEREOGUM: Does it cloud the process for you?
HADREAS: Kind of, and I’m just obsessive about music, so if I find something I like I listen to it over and over for a month and then I end up writing that song. So maybe I’ll listen to old music, where if something sticks in my brain it doesn’t matter if I take a little bit from that, because that’s essentially what making music is. [laughs]
STEREOGUM: You tweeted about the Chainsmokers. Are you a fan?
HADREAS: I’m kind of obsessed with them. Did you see that tweet they made, that chain of emo jpegs? With just really normal angst-y stuff but with more cuss words and like, street language? [laughs] I mean, if you’re those dudes, why wouldn’t you be those dudes? They’re essentially making millions of dollars for it, and they’re getting to be those dudes now 200 percent. I can’t really get mad at them, because they’ve been fully supported in being like that, even though they completely represent everything gross. But at least it’s so ... sometimes when things go so far, it almost goes full-circle for me. I’m almost endeared by it because it’s so awful, as opposed to when people are essentially Chainsmokers but they’ve like, read a book. So they try to fool you or trick you into thinking they’re not the Chainsmokers because they’ve read a book or they play chess with their dad. But really they’re fucking fratboy dicks.
STEREOGUM: One of my favorite things was your late-night spree of sorting musicians into Hogwarts.
HADREAS: [laughs] It almost got too real for me, a little. Someone had me sort Father John Misty and I did, “Public Slytherin, private Hufflepuff.” Which, to me, is a compliment. And I hope he understands that’s a compliment, because I do like him. He favorited it. Lana [Del Rey] did respond to it, because I put her in Slytherin, but like “in a rad way.” And she was like “I’m a Gryffindor.” [laughs] “Everybody thinks I’m Slytherin but my music is Slytherin but I’m actually a Gryffindor.”
No Shape is out now via Matador.
