Since the very beginning, singer-songwriter Mika has been a standout talent, and one that critics and fans alike found themselves drawn to. Now almost 10 years into his recording career, the flamboyance and the unique sound that only he can bring to the table have only gotten better with time, as is evidenced by his latest collection, No Place in Heaven, which is due out in June around the world. The album is led by the upbeat and colorful (what else could we expect from Mika) “Talk About You,” which, if you haven’t experienced it in a while, will give you a healthy dose of the piano-fronted pop that made him a star in the first place.

You have a massive following in Europe…
...and in Asia!

Exactly. How do you feel about the reception of your music in the US versus around the world?
The commercial reception in terms of radio play is something I almost don’t even think about. I don’t quantify it, because I can’t. I have a huge amount of opportunities that come out of America. I mean something different in every country that I perform in now. I’m different in Italy, I’m different in France, and I’m different in Korea, where I’m playing the Olympic Hall, where we sold 16,000 tickets in two weeks’ time.

I’m such an atypical artist, and I exist in such a strange place, especially in the United States, but then when I stand on stage and I look out at the people in front of me, every single type, especially more and more young people, like twenty to thirty, it seems almost cathartic to them. It belongs to them. The gunpowder has always been kept dry. It’s never been really big on mainstream radio, it’s always stayed in a certain zone, and as a result it belongs to the fans. They lose their minds because it’s not really out in public.

My life is full of contrasts. Every time I announced a show with nothing more than a tweet they sell out. How? I have no idea. It beguiles me. It is confusing and fun at the same time. I don’t make massively commercial music, and never have. It’s very homespun. Some of it has gone way further than anything I would have imagined, but at the end of the day, my process is very indie.

How does your creative process differ when it comes to your visuals versus when you’re making music?
It’s the same. I draw all of it. If I wasn’t a musician, I’d have been an illustrator. I make all the artwork and the sets myself. My sister and I have done all my visuals, all my posters, t-shirts, everything.

Bizarrely we’re now getting jobs to design stuff, from shoes to Swatch collections. It’s all connected with. The good thing is I manage to bring it back to music, which helps me.

So when are we going to see a shoe designed by Mika?
The shoes will probably be out at the beginning of next year. The next Swatch campaign comes out at the end of this year. I’m also making two books that will be out at the end of this year as well. One of them is an illustrated diary, and the second one is an art book.

On top of the art, how much does your personal style play into the overall image?
From the beginning, I didn’t have the budget for clothes, so I made my own. I made them with my mom. When I decided to do television in Europe, I said I was going to do it my own way. I was looking around at different TV shows and thinking that everybody was dressed so badly. I was like “let’s just go and do it the way we want”. All the clothes I wear on all of the shows are Valentino Couture, and they are all one-off pieces that get made as a result of exchanges that we have. We come up with these weird things and we make them into clothes.

Are all of the blazers you wore in your “Talk About You” video all Valentino?
They are Valentino Couture, Moschino Couture, and a suit my mom made.

Which one did your mom make?
The dark green one. The shinier one.

How do you think your sound has changed over the past several albums?
The fingerprint and the storytelling techniques are instantly recognizable in everything that I do. I would say that my third album was a rupture, a definite break. Everything about it was deflective, there’s no eye contact. The writing was very pop, but the production was hard to get into. This one is a lot more transparent and a lot more direct. It’s a lot more cleaned out and super simple.

What made you want to be so transparent this time around?
It felt like it was an appropriate snapshot of me now. I’m now 31, and you realize that transparency and being candid are the only ways to grow up without dying.

Without dying?
Without shutting down. Growing up and shutting down are not two things that always have to happen together. You don’t always have to become more reserved the older you get, and in fact the opposite can happen.

So would you say that the main shift that caused you to want to express yourself in a much more direct way was your hitting 30, or was there anything else in your life that made you think this way?
Mainly that. It’s affected all my decisions, from the work that I do to making television to being more open about every part of my life. It’s all related.

How does it feel to come back to America and see this massively warm reception?
It’s delicious. It’s fun!

I love that you called it delicious.
It really is. There’s no other way to describe it. There’s something that happens with my music in America where people just soften and open up at the shows. They lose themselves a little bit, and that’s what’s so powerful about it. Standing on stage and seeing everybody be on the same wavelength is really incredible. I wish that I could find a way to take that and find a way to present that experience on a more regular basis. So maybe it’s theater off Broadway. Maybe it’s a concert. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe there’s a nonconventional way of having more of a presence in New York for example than just a show every two years.

Do you actually have the idea of a musical going in the back of your head?
Yeah. A Mika musical in New York, starting with workshops in the middle of nowhere and then going off Broadway, and then anything’s possible...if it’s good. I’d love to take the energy and the feeling that people have when they come to ony of my gigs and to give it a home. It would be great to finally have a platform in America.

I think back to the beginning of my career in the UK, and we’d go around and people would say “there’s no market for you here” or “there’s no need for you here," and so I went and created my own world, my own visuals, my own clothes, my own everything, because I was forced to. I look at America today and I feel the same. If there’s no platform for me, but I know that there’s people here for me, I’ll just have to invent my own. So that’s my next challenge.

Pre-order Mika's No Place In Heaven now, out June 16 via Republic.