As MICO prepares to release his highly anticipated new single, “Do it all again,” today, following the tracklist reveal for his debut album When the lights turn on, the Filipino-Canadian singer-songwriter finds himself at a pivotal moment in his career. Over the past year, the 23-year-old alt-pop-rock artist has gone from internet sensation to major label signee, selling out headline tours across North America and Europe while continuing to build a fiercely loyal community of fans he affectionately calls his “amicos.”
On When the lights turn on, out June 26, MICO channels the uncertainty, heartbreak, nostalgia and self-discovery that come with growing up and finding your place in the world. Inspired by the pop-punk and alternative acts that shaped his childhood while embracing modern influences ranging from hyperpop to alt-rock, the album serves as his most personal work to date. The newly released “Do it all again” captures one of the album’s central themes—wrestling with relationships you know may not work out but finding yourself drawn back anyway.
Ahead of the single’s release and the official album tracklist announcement, we caught up with MICO to discuss the making of When the lights turn on, navigating life on the road, turning deeply personal experiences into songs that resonate with millions, and what comes next as his career continues to reach new heights. Read on for a deep dive into his artistry and latest project.
Sweety High: When the lights turn on feels like a snapshot of a really transitional period in your life. What was the biggest realization you had about yourself while making this album?
MICO: I think the biggest realization that I had in this process was gaining basic human self-respect and boundaries. I think this record encapsulates a lot of how I’ve been feeling over the last two or three years in particular. And I think part of why I felt that way is because I’d never really put any walls up for myself in a positive “this is what I need” way. And so it’s a lot of me recognizing what it is I actually do need in the moment, versus trying to think of other people or trying to think of what the right thing to do would be, versus what I actually just like need for myself in that moment.
(Photo credit: Pat Ryder)
SH: Looking back at the album now, is there a lyric that best sums up where you were emotionally during its creation?
MICO: Honestly, it’s in the least ego way possible because this line was like half written as a joke, but in “Can’t Keep Crying,” there’s a line in the first pre-chorus that reads “I don’t wanna live with the consequence of winning.” I remember at first I kind of spat it out as a joke ’cause I was like it’s kinda like a reverse DJ Khaled suffering from success album. But I think a lot of it was the byproduct of having the ability to leave home and having the ability to go and do all of these things and effectively how all of these experiences impacted my own personal life, my own personal relationships and not necessarily for the better in any way, shape or form.
SH: One of the album’s central ideas is returning home and realizing it doesn’t feel the same anymore. Do you think home is a place, a group of people, or something you have to build for yourself?
MICO: I feel like it’s a different type of feeling because when I go home, I have all of those things, but it doesn’t really feel like what it used to be. I feel like home is just more of a constant, and it’s more of a stability than it is any of those things, because you can have all of those things and then suddenly be far away from it and not recognize it when you’re back. It’s a familiarity. I think the second you lose that, or like you’ve been gone for too long and you don’t recognize that anymore, it doesn’t really exist in the same way it used to.
(Photo credit: Pat Ryder)
SH: As someone who’s gone from making music in your bedroom to touring internationally, how do you stay connected to the version of yourself that started this dream?
MICO: I think touring internationally, all the shows are what helped me stay close to how this started because my entire band and I we are good friends from high school and then on top of that all of this only even started because of what I used to do on Discord and Twitch streams and kind of building the audience up by connecting with people one on one and the easiest way for me to do that nowadays is at the shows. It’s like actually getting to meet people after the sets or before the sets and kind of have those intimate conversations with them and hear their stories and be able to put like names and usernames to faces, it’s such a humbling grounding experience, I think.
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SH: “Dream Boy” explores the disconnect between someone’s online perception of you and who you are in real life. Walk us through that songwriting process.
MICO: I think immediately going into it I already kind of had this perception of what I wanted some of the themes of the album to be. I think that a lot of the general themes are perception, and I guess a lack thereof of a correct one. and kinda having things imposed upon you. I wanted to have one song where it just took that to the largest version of itself, and it’s kind of the most accusatory because that’s just something that I’d wouldn’t really do in my own personal life. Just as a human being something I would never say to someone, because that’s a bold accusation to make. But, it was fun to kind of play that character for a bit and vent out a bunch of feelings that I’ve been holding in because I think, especially in today’s day and age, you haven’t really seen it with small artists until nowadays, even if you have a small audience, every single person there will know every single detail about you that is publicly available. I feel like that’s something that used to happen when you reach a certain level, but now it’s just like the second that anything happens. I was just talking to one of my friends earlier, and they were playing a two-hour cap show, but there are four of them, and people are already talking about biases and their high schools and kind of already entering the realm of like knowing too much, and I wondered how I could like properly articulate that type of feeling.
SH: Which song on the album changed the most from its original demo?
MICO: I do think it has to be “shoes.” Originally going into it, the instruction that I have was like this is an acoustic song. I think if we do anything more than a little ambiance, we’re doing a little too much. But then we started to just slowly layer stuff over the second verse in pre-chorus, and then we started to layer more, and then we started to layer more, and it ended up being something that really surprised me, where it still felt as vulnerable as an acoustic song and still had that exact same essence but with a lot more power behind it and it just added to the feeling rather than like subtracting or sterilizing it. I really love where that song is at right now. And just how everything turned out, because now I think sonically it’s a great representation and a great build to what the song actually means, and how it feels.
(Photo credit: Pat Ryder)
SH: What’s your favorite song on the album? And which are you most excited to play live?
MICO: It changes literally like every week. It’s crazy how it always fluctuates. I told myself I wouldn’t put out this project unless I loved every single song on it. It used to be a 15-track album, and then we ended up whittling it down to 10 because I was like, “these are just the 10 strongest ones.” These are the ones that make the most sense. These are the “I wouldn’t skip a single one here.” What am I feeling right now, though? I think right now I’m in an “OH!” mood. I’m in an “OH!” and “do it all again” mood. I think I think they’re number one and number two, and then number two and number one. Probably “OH!” is slightly beating out “Do It All Again” for favorite song, and then “Do It All Again” is slightly beating out “OH!” for live. I get to test it all out next week, so maybe it’ll change.
SH: What would 16-year-old you think if he could see where your career is today?
MICO: I think he’d be happy with where I’m at. I’ve always been like a very straightforward if this then that type of thinker, and so he always wanted to make music that was very similar to a lot of the people that he listened to. And a lot of the people that he listened to. When I was going to shows, I was going to 1000, 1500-cap venues and listening to people that I had found on SoundCloud and YouTube and stuff like that. And so I think the trajectory and where I ended up and how I got there, I think that would be a satisfying enough story for younger me.
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SH: If listeners were to take away one thing from the album, what do you hope it is?
MICO: I don’t really know how I want people to feel from this record. I just want them to feel something from it. I love how people interpret all the songs differently, and more than anything, I just want people to at least resonate with something and feel a little bit less alone, because that’s kind of what I ran to music for, especially in high school, with a lot of the stuff that really influenced me. I just feel like that’s kind of the crux of why we do it all.
SH: What is one thing that your fans would be surprised to learn about the making of this album?
MICO: I think a lot of this record deals with relationship incompatibilities because of all the changes that I’ve experienced, but I think, like people have heard this and said that this sounds like a breakup record. And I did have a breakup in the writing process. But it had happened after all the songs had already been written. It was almost like the songs were the processing period that I needed. And then I was like, Okay, cool. Got all my emotions in order.
(Photo credit: Pat Ryder)
SH: You’re entering a new chapter, both personally and professionally. What kind of excites you most about what’s ahead and what do you think comes next for you creatively?
MICO: Honestly, I think I’m just excited to make more s***. Even as this album’s been rolling out, I’ve just been working on more and more stuff, and there are so many ideas, and I don’t think like anything’s really ready, but it’s been hard to turn the creative gears off after I’d kind of started rolling them. I always say that the everything before this project was like what 16-year-old me wanted to do and everything after this is what me now wants to do and I think I kinda like shut off that part of like what seemed fresh and new for what was super familiar and exciting to me before and it’s it’s been really satisfying to be able to explore all those avenues and I’d I don’t know, I haven’t been able to shut my brain up about it since.
SH: Anything else you’d like to add that we haven’t talked about?
MICO: Super excited for the album to be out there and can’t wait for fans to stream it. I hope they like it.
For even more on MICO, click HERE to discover everything he shared with us as our Man Crush Monday.
