Don’t hold it against Sliimy that he was hand-picked by the infamous Perez Hilton to be the first artist signed to Hilton’s Perezcious label, an imprint of Warner Bros. And don’t hold it against him that his name — pronounced like “Slimmy,” not “Slimy” — looks slightly gross and requires phonetic explanation. Or that he’s popular in France. (He is French, after all.)

Sliimy has garnered comparisons to Mika and Prince, but he is too openly gay to be too much like either, and with a close listen, it’s clear that Sliimy’s music is too personal to tie him too closely to any of his influences.

Advocate.com: You were recently spotted at Paris Fashion Week with Dita Von Teese and Katy Perry.
Yeah, that was great. It was the second time I’ve been to Paris Fashion Week. I think there is a big link between fashion and music, so it’s really interesting to go and see some shows and to get in touch with that. I really love fashion too. It’s a great experience. It’s really marvelous to see such beautiful clothes, and it gives you inspiration, I think.

Speaking of inspiration, how would you classify your own style?
Um ... that’s a little bit hard. My style ... is a kind of language. It’s like my personality. Sometimes it’s really colorful and sometimes it’s not. My style is in link with my music, and it’s really important for me to express that with clothes.

It’s interesting that you said “sometimes it’s colorful and sometimes it’s not.” Your first single, “Wake Up,” has a colorful, maybe even childlike, sound, but a lot of the songs on the album have a darker feeling, which isn’t necessarily something people associate with you.

I think it’s a part of my personality. I am from a little hometown in France and I need to be like this on my first album. It was important to me to be happy with the music. I remember when I was younger and I was listening to lots of bands and lots of music like the Beatles, and I think it was the same for me for this first album. “Wake Up” is one of my personalities — the fun part, the colorful part. But there are also sounds on this album that are a bit darker. In France my new single, called “Paint Your Face” — you can watch this on [the] Internet — it’s very different than “Wake Up.” And I think that the creations for the second album are going to be really different.