Mike Hadreas is sitting in a restaurant in Shanghai, happily eating a dish called “Beijing Heaving”—so named due to dodgy Mandarin-to-English menu translation and not because it tastes like puke. It’s December and the singer/songwriter known as Perfume Genius is wrapping up more than a year’s worth of touring behind his third album, Too Bright, with two dates in China, far away from his current home of Tacoma, Washington both geographically and culturally. 

The following night, the 34-year-old puts on lipstick and wedge heels before swaggering in front of his four-piece band at Shanghai’s QSW Culture Center. Armed with the beefed-up songwriting and sound shown on his latest record, Hadreas’ performances provide a platform to exorcise his long-standing anxiousness, which was fostered by the homophobic abuse that permeated his life as a young gay man growing up in America. 

Walking around The Bund, Shanghai’s iconic waterfront, he fidgets and hunches while posing for photographs in front of skyscrapers that are barely visible through lung-busting smog. He shrinks into his pink patterned sweater as camera-toting tourists mill nearby.

As a singer, Hadreas doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve as much as he places it on a platter and passes it around. Too Bright saw his songwriting clout increase considerably, most memorably on the single “Queen,” in which he sarcastically lambasts homophobic stereotyping with the declaration: “No family is safe when I sashay!” In recent years, an increasing amount of prominent gay musicians have felt comfortable enough to be open about their sexuality in the public sphere, but few channel the issue as a source of lyrical inspiration as directly as Hadreas.

As we walk up The Bund, he asks me if homosexuality is legal in China. It’s surely a vexing prospect for him to come to countries such as this, where homosexuality was criminalized until 1997 and listed as a mental illness until 2001. Even now, clinics offering supposed “cures” for homosexuality involving electroshock therapy are rife across the country. While the government has made strides to promote equality here recently—a Chinese court recently agreed to hear a same-sex marriage case—much of society here still holds negative views towards gay people and it is believed that the vast majority never come out.

“That makes me want to come to these places even more, though it makes it more nerve-wracking,” he says. “In Singapore, the gay sex act is criminalized, so I knew that being who I am there could have got me sent me to jail.”

Hadreas’ music gains even more gravitas when he performs alongside his long-term boyfriend, keyboardist Alan Wyffels; during a typical encore, they sit together sweetly, shoulder to shoulder. “It feels so intimate,” says Hadreas. “We’re never really apart. It’s like we’re the same person—recently I got a booking wrong because I counted us as one person instead of two.”

His songwriting honesty has made Hadreas an underground icon for those on the receiving end of homophobic abuse, and he feels it’s important not to suppress his urge to write about the issues that dominate his life, even if a more ambiguous style might reap greater commercial success.

“Writing about this stuff can cut out insecure people who think it means something about them to like a gay artist,” he says. “[Many gay musicians] don’t want their gayness to be such a big part of their identity, but I want to be purposeful and specific. When I was young, it would have been so helpful for me to have someone be hyper-specific, because I would have related to them much more.”

As a high school student, Hadreas suffered extreme homophobic bullying that compounded his isolation. A group of peers once sent him a joint letter promising that they wouldn’t “treat me like a human being until I stop sucking dick.” That teenage abuse has made him feel like he needs to steel himself to face the public whenever he leaves his house to this day.

Through the years, he has been attacked both physically and verbally. “There are all kinds of different things people do, from tiny little wound marks to straight up getting punched in the face,” he says. “Something like that hasn’t happened in a long time, though. It’s more getting called a faggot on the street. Or people laughing. The laughing really bugs me. It depends a lot on what I’m wearing.” 

Hadreas’ outlet for the anger and fear that comes with such ridicule is performing as Perfume Genius. It used to be drink and drugs: He spent his early 20s bingeing in New York before going to rehab and getting sober about a decade ago. “Going out and being a dickhead was what made me feel completely whole,” he says, looking back. “I met people similar to me—gay people, weirdos—and for the first time I felt part of something.”

He liked party drugs (“speedy stuff—I wanted to feel everything and have it feel really good”) and admits he still misses them. Having always been an outsider, he valued the acceptance the party scene gave him. “It was really fun and it did save me for a few years,” he says. “But I realized I was gonna die if I kept doing it. I would never say I’ll never have a drink again, but I can say I’m not drinking now.”

So, in Shanghai, instead of hitting the bars, Hadreas hits the stores. We head to a pet market stacked with panicky caged birds, glass bowls overflowing with terrapins, and piles of wicker balls housing clicking crickets. After inquiring about the legalities of importing pets from China to the U.S. (not a good idea), he buys an outfit for his Chihuahua, who recently recovered from illness after eating marijuana (that Hadreas says did not belong to him). These days, Hadreas’ dog is doing more drugs than he is.

Canine clothes shopping done, evening arrives, and Hadreas puts his makeup on, changes outfits, and gets ready to hit the stage. During “Queen,” he seems to grow a foot taller, smiling and swaying with a confidence not hinted at during our stroll around Shanghai’s neon-slick streets. “I want to bang you!” yells a slurring male American voice from the crowd. “Get in line,” Hadreas sassily replies. 

After the show, vaping as he winds down in the dressing room (as well as drink and drugs, he’s quit smoking), Hadreas reflects on his onstage transformation. He does it simply because it feels natural to him, but he’s aware that many onlookers not plugged into the subtleties of his songwriting can misinterpret such flamboyance.

“Some people act like it’s a drag show and yell ‘fierce!’” he says. “I am fierce, yes, but I’m serious about music. I have a sense of humor but I don’t want to turn this into some novelty. That guy shouting ‘I want to bang you!’—of course I want everyone to want to bang me, but that’s not why I’m up there.”

As he steps out the back door after the show, a gaggle of mostly male Chinese Perfume Genius obsessives are waiting for him, asking to kiss him on the cheek. “That’s a good review,” he quips.