Perfume Genius: "I wanted to push the darkness as far as I could"

For the uninitiated, the ‘old way’ involved Mike Hadreas sitting down at the piano and proceeding to spill his guts out. The first two Perfume Genius records - Learning and Put Ur Back N 2 It - are made up almost entirely of exercises in self-evisceration that are operatic in their intensity; the Seattleite certainly couldn’t be accused of failing to leave everything on the table. His sexuality, his health issues - he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at fourteen - and his struggle with addiction have all been laid bare with an acute bluntness that most of his contemporaries are either unwilling or unable to conjure. One particular track on his last album was so brutal in its self-deprecation that Hadreas found himself fighting back tears when discussing it with a Guardian journalist.

Accordingly, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I called him to discuss Too Bright, his frankly staggering third LP. Sonically, it’s underscored by a level of ambition that tops anything on either of its predecessors; where previously Hadreas had only hinted at an exploration of synth sounds, he’s jumped down the rabbit hole feet-first this time. Emotionally, too, it might be his most balanced work to date; the subject matter is often every bit as dark as it sounds, but there’s definitely a sense - right from the wonderfully-restrained opener "I Decline" - that he has a better handle on his state of mind than before.

“I just wanted to push the darkness as far as I could. I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied if I didn’t, really. I mean, even on the demos for this record, there’s parts that just sound gross and disturbing, and I wanted to go as far down that path as possible. I was really going for it. That’s always what I’ve enjoyed, artistically, whether it’s music or movies or whatever - things that really go over the top in some way. In the past, I’d go into the studio and be very paranoid about not wanting to tack on too many instruments; I wanted everything to be very spare, very gentle. This was kind of the opposite; the demos had tons of stuff going on, that I then had to kind of whittle down. That was actually pretty much all I had to do when we went in to record.”

The title of the album, then, seems pretty jarring by way of comparison to both its themes and its sound; based on my conversation with him, in which he’s wittily self-effacing throughout, it’s not especially surprising that he chose to be playful in christening the record. “I like that Too Bright can kind of mean ‘too much’, too, which is something that I’ve been accused of in different ways down the years. Before I made the album, I was advised to tone down my lyrical content to make it a little more pleasant, and universally appealing, and I didn’t really do that. It’s still pop music, though, even if it is dark and experimental; I still thought about the fact that people would be listening to it, and I think you can hear that I wanted to make it a little bit catchy in places.”

It seems at once both surprising and kind of predictable that third parties might think that Hadreas would benefit from paring down his approach a little; it’s certainly made for uncomfortable listening in the past, but then again, it’s the visceral nature of his writing that makes him such a draw in the first place. “That was just various forms of dad-like advice,” he laughs. “I mean, actually from my dad himself, as well as record label dads. They’re all well-intended - they want for me to be successful, and for as many people to hear the music as possible - so I understand it, and I worry about that too, you know? I don’t want to alienate people with my music, but I think that if I talk explicitly about my own experiences, if I’m very personal about it, people end up being able to relate to it better than when I try to write songs that aren’t quite as serious. I always want for there to be a message, but when I do that and it’s not from a personal place, it ends up sounding really corny; when it’s less therapeutic for everybody else, it becomes less therapeutic for me.”

It’s worth remembering, too, that Hadreas’ burgeoning fanbase places serious stock in the honesty of his music; to make a conscious effort to reach out to a wider audience would be to risk estranging those who have already formed a connection with Perfume Genius. “I thought about that too, mainly after the fact, with Too Bright. I was writing differently, but it was still coming from the same place. The fear of kind of turning off people who liked those last two albums was only really paralysing before I threw myself into making this one; I think I’ve bought myself some freedom, now. The next thing might be even darker and more minimal than this record, or I might go in the opposite direction entirely. Everything I’ve ever done that I’m proud of came from taking some kind of risk, so I had to push myself on this album, and put that fear out of my mind as much as I could.”

Put Ur Back N 2 It was recorded, in part, close to Bristol with producer Ali Chant. He returned this time, too, to sit behind the desk with Adrian Utley from Portishead; Too Bright was laid down between the pair’s studios, both in the Bristol area. The record is scored through with the kind of cinematic subtleties that have defined Utley’s work in the past, with Third seeming like a particular point of reference from Hadreas; take the murky, distorted atmosphere of ‘I’m a Mother’, for example, or the off-kilter sense of foreboding that characterises ‘Queen’.

“I knew Adrian could push it,” says Hadreas. “I didn’t have to hear much beyond his name to be into it, but I’d already started writing, and the emails that went back and forth convinced me he was the right choice. I’m very serious about the emotional intent of all of the songs on this record, and whilst I knew from the get-go that he could help me push the louder songs, I came to realise he was very invested in, and patient about, the quieter moments, too. That was all there was to it, really. Ali recommended him once he heard the demos, because he knew he’d like those synth sounds I was going for.”

John Parish, too, returned to play drums on Too Bright; unsurprisingly, it was the sticksman’s work with another caustic singer-songwriter - PJ Harvey - that brought him to Hadreas’ attention. “That first collaborative album that they did together, I listened to that a lot growing up,” explains Hadreas. “I really like that guy - he’s inspiring to watch. I’ve never really seen anyone like him. He seems really mild-mannered, and he’s very easy to talk to, but he’s capable of some totally insane stuff, creatively. He’d listen to my song once, really quietly and thoughtfully, say “OK, I’ll try something”, and what he would try would always be something completely nuts, and wild. Adrian’s like that, too, and so am I, I think. We’re not dark people in our daily lives, but creatively, we totally are, and that’s what I want when I work with people. There doesn’t necessarily have to be some big cloud hanging over the whole thing - just when necessary.”

That’s actually a pretty neat summation of what’s made all three Perfume Genius albums so compelling; they’re less about darkness, per se, and more to do with power. Too Bright, again, is another record that stays with you for a while afterwards, in the same way that the most profound films tend to. When I ask if there’s ever room for his songwriting to take a turn for the lighter, Hadreas says that he’s “always looking for the most serious, moving, cathartic thing” - it’s obvious that to try to take too much of a left turn with Perfume Genius would be to dilute the potency of his work.

If there’s a consistent lyrical theme running through Too Bright, it’s that of the human body; Hadreas is typically forthright about the shortcomings of his own on tracks like "My Body" and "No Good", and it offers up a new angle on the topics of his illnesses and addictions than in the past. “I guess there were a lot of years where I didn’t pay much attention to my body,” he admits. “I was drinking and doing drugs, and I felt pretty hot that whole time, you know? It felt pretty good! Those things covered up a lot of the symptoms I might have been having - they become easier to ignore, and any body image issues were kind of smoothed over, too. Those things are magnified now, because I have my picture taken all the time, so it’s been kind of brought to the fore again. I already think about myself enough, and that side of things can really warp your self-perception. It’s kind of embarrassing, but not because I think the body’s supposed to be sacred, or anything, or because I’m ashamed of the issues I’ve had; it’s more that talking about that stuff can make you look really vain! But it works for me. It’s an easy place to put everything.”

Hadreas completed a brief run of UK dates earlier this month, taking in End of the Road festival as well as a handful of headline shows; the new cuts were kept to a relative minimum, but it was clear that the influence of Too Bright was already beginning to bleed into the older material. “We’ve fleshed out some of the songs that we’ve been playing for a while; we’ve got a new guitar player who’s beefed them up a little bit, and we’ve added drums where there weren’t any in the past. It’s just a lot more of a performance than before, really. I’ve never been that into making shows sound exactly like the album, because it’s always bored me; I’d rather just listen to it through my headphones, if you’re going to go down that road. It’s just that there’s the same atmosphere, the same tension, the same approach as on the album in the shows, rather than the sound - it’s more immediate, but just as big. It takes a lot more thought than when it was just, you know, me cooing behind a piano.”

Too Bright is available via Turnstile on September 22nd