With broken, beautiful lyrics and mournful instrumentation, Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas crafts personal songs that are universally relatable. After struggling with substance abuse and subsequently taking time to recover, Hadreas emerged from darkness with music that helped him process his past realities.
Diversions assistant editor Elizabeth Byrum talked to him about gaining confidence for live performances, revealing personal secrets and how to maintain earnestness in songwriting.
Diversions: What experiences drove you to start making music?
Mike Hadreas: Well, I’m an alcoholic and to get sober, it was hard and it took a lot of work. After I went to rehab I lived with my mom and after a couple of months of being healthy, I don’t know, just a bunch of feelings that I had put of feeling and a bunch of experiences I had put off remembering or even acknowledging — a whole bunch of things kind of flooded me at once.
I had found a way to kind of quiet my brain, and when my brain wasn’t quiet anymore I didn’t really know what to do. For some reason, I was compelled to write music. That was a way to put it all together, be a little more patient and step back from being overwhelmed. It made it less overwhelming.
Dive: How has becoming a musician changed you, and what has the experience taught you?
MH: Just that I’m a lot more capable of being a normal adult than I thought I was. That was always kind of my fear, that I thought there was something about it that doesn’t work in the world. And that’s not true.
And also a lot of anxieties and fears have happened to me, and you know, you can deal with them. I feel a lot more tough getting healthy than whatever kind of crap I went through when I was fucked up.
Dive: What kind of form has the songwriting process taken? Is it mostly done individually?
MH: Well, it’s getting a little different now that I have a boyfriend and I live in an apartment building and I can plan on actually having a life; I’m not alone all the time.
Well, with my first album, I kind of found that … I still write alone, but Alan’s (Wyffels, boyfriend and collaborator) always there for me to run things by afterwards and what he has to say, even though he isn’t really writing with me, but what he has to say changes the way I look at it. Just to have him nearby to listen to it differently. But I kind of just have to write now when everyone’s at work or write really quietly when everyone’s asleep.
Dive: What are some of your other considerations during the writing process, either before or during? Is there anything else you are thinking about?
MH: I just always want things to be very earnest and I want them to get across whatever message I have in the simplest way possible. Sometimes when I am writing, it’s hard to tell if I’m trying to hard.
I try to make sure whatever I’m writing is not just for me. Especially now that it’s more of a career and I know lots of people are going to hear it and things like that. I don’t want to make music that is just for myself.
Dive: Would you consider that on your first album, Learning, and maybe your second album, Put Your Back N 2 It, you were writing for yourself instead of a broader audience?
MH: On the first one, for sure. On the second one, it’s still very personal, but I made sure that it was written in a way that it helped people relate to it. I think sometimes it helps to be really specific, so that people can kind of relax enough to put themselves in your shoes.
After I wrote the first album, I got a lot of letters from people and I talked to a lot of people after shows and I wanted to make things that would be somewhat helpful to them.
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