“You wake up and you’re like, ‘How could I be so close to essentially dying and not care?’ But then I would do [it] again. You do that enough and you’re like, ‘I have to figure this out.’ And you can’t figure out by like, ‘I’ll only do a little bit of cocaine, but I’ll do yoga….’

“I have not written or painted or done a single thing when I was fucked up. Definitely felt like I could, felt like I had a million ideas, but I never committed, never did anything when I was high. That’s the same as how people think you need some sort of depression to be creative, but it’s very different than sadness. Nothing comes from depression. Depression itself is like a void, but sadness, a lot of things can come from. You can be attentive and still have moments of sadness.” — Mike Hadreas/Perfume Genius (sober for eight years), New York magazine, 2017

The new album from Perfume Genius (NO SHAPE) is out, and the band returns to Los Angeles for a series of gigs, large and small:

PERFUME GENIUS, Thursday, July 20.

EL REY, 5515 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.

theelrey.com/events

PERFUME GENIUS, Saturday, July 22, at 7:45 pm. (Prior to Erykah Badu at 9:50 pm and Frank Ocean at 11 pm.)

FYF FEST, Exposition Park, Los Angeles.

fyffest.com/

THE XX and PERFUME GENIUS, Friday, September 29, at 7:30 pm

THE FORUM, 3900 West Manchester Boulevard, Inglewood.

perfumegenius.org

Perfume Genius (top) at FYF Fest 2017, and (bottom) onstage in Boston. Image credits: (top) Emma McIntyre/Getty Images; (bottom) Respect Your Youngers.