Avant-garde, post-punk, death oompah band and cult cabaret geniuses The Tiger Lillies make their long-awaited return to Australia with Serenade from the Sewer, celebrating the weird, the macabre and those that society has abandoned.
The group laid foundation in 1989 when singer Martyn Jacques placed an ad for a drummer and a bass player. Two responses ensued (Adrian Huge and Phil Butcher) and the London-based experimental rock trio was born. The group has undergone a number of switches since ’95 when bassist Adrian Stout replaced Butcher.
Jacques recalls the early days: ” After spending 10 years in a small flat in Soho with just the piano, I decided to form a band. I thought the best thing would be for it to be a trio: me playing the accordion, a drummer playing brushes, and a double bass player. I put an advert in the local newspaper. Only one drummer replied; he lied. He’d never actually played drums with brushes before, but he brought someone on his way to the studio. The double bass player played all the wrong notes in all the wrong time signatures, but I managed to persuade an old friend who had recently been playing with pop star Iggy Pop to join the band. We started doing gigs and the rest is history.”
Adrian Stout joined the band after they had been together for about 5 years saying he was introduced to them by the original drummer in the band, Adrian Huge.
“I met him in 1993 when I answered an ad in a paper for a bassist needed for a country and western club in central London. I went to the audition and ended up being part of the rhythm section for the club with Huge for a few years. We would back singer-songwriters who wanted to play with a full band once a week. It was then Huge mentioned his other group and I went to see them playing in a local pub. They were very odd and I liked it immediately, so much so I booked them to play at a house party where I was living in a shared house. My flatmates were not impressed but I thought it went well!
So after seeing the band regularly for a few years in local venues and bars, Adrian Huge asked if I was available for a couple of weeks in August to cover for their bassist Phil Butcher, who wasn’t able to play the full month run of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I was playing in various covers and blues bands while also studying philosophy at university as a mature student in ’95, so a couple of weeks in Scotland playing original songs sounded like a good opportunity, and they wanted double bass which I had but only occasionally played. I was mainly a bass guitarist at that time.
Well the shows went well, despite the comedy duo we were working with wanting to kill us most nights for upsetting their show and playing the wrong songs during the performance. Phil decided to leave the band shortly after this and I took over, so a 2-week gig turned into 30 years.”
The Tiger Lillies have toured the world for over 35 years and, according to Jacques, the travelling is very tedious; you get sick of being in an airport and on aeroplanes very quickly.
“It is better to be in a tour van. At least you don’t have to think then. But on stage there is magic. Each audience is different, like one many-headed person. Sometimes they are loud and extrovert, sometimes quiet and thoughtful. Sometimes, usually in big cities or in big theatres, they are cultured and intelligent; sometimes in smaller venues in smaller towns they can actually be more loud and enthusiastic. You never know and that’s part of the fun.”
Stout agrees and says touring isn’t for everyone; you have to be comfortable with letting go of things many people cherish such as birthdays, parties, familiarity, routine. It’s a very unsettling life for many people.
“I always enjoyed the variety of the job, waking up in a different place every day, or being able to spend long periods in cities you like such as New York, Vienna, Sydney while playing a theatre show for weeks or even months. So I have been to hundreds of towns and I have many more I hope to visit. I live in Prague now and it was always a fascinating place to see change over the decades. Athens is great. I’m less enamoured by the USA now (for obvious reasons) but I loved the time we spent there. We played long runs in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and I really got a lot from living in those places.”
A blend of many styles and genres, the Tiger Lillies are difficult to define but whatever they are, audiences love them and, according to Jacques, he tends to love them right back.
“They are a type of people, probably the sort of people you’d meet in an art cinema — different ages but with an appreciation for the weird and the different, eccentricity and madness. They are not classical, they are not rock, they are more non-conformist and theatrical. Some of them dress up in funny costumes.”
Stout says he has a slightly different relationship than Jacques as he is the main focus for the audience. Stout prefers to be less noticed and want to be part of the whole thing musically, so he gets a little self-conscious with the applause as it’s not about him, and he’s more invested in how he played than how it’s received.
“Our fans are great though, and many of them follow the band for years, some for decades, so you have to respect their dedication. We do get to know a lot of the hardcore ones but I try to keep a distance as I think they prefer it. I also had a stalker issue for a while and it was very unpleasant to be the focus of someone’s obsession so that has made me more wary these days. But we still go out after every show to meet the audience; it’s important for us to stay connected as we need all the support we can get to survive.”
As the founder of the band, Jacques is most proud of the fact that he has managed to ‘stick his fingers’ up at the whole entertainment music industry for 30 years. “I have never tried to be famous. I have never tried to make loads of money. I’ve just made music and concentrated on it being unique. I have sang lyrics which few dare to sing. If I had been born in a dictatorship, I would probably of been dead years ago.”
In what can be a fickle industry Jacques puts the band’s longevity down to a nonconformity and their refusal to follow the rules, to follow the industry, to be individual and unique, which keeps them going and motivates them.
” Nobody really sounds like us and nobody really says what we say in our lyrics. You can call us a dark cabaret band or more humorously a death oompa band but really we are all about not fitting into any category. It is interesting that we also have a death metal following.”
Stouts says the reality for any band who wants to achieve longevity is that the relationship between the fans and the band needs to be maintained. “The band have to push to keep playing where the audience exists and also you have to search for new opportunities to create new work. So we play concerts all over the world, and we are involved in theatre shows or collaborations with visual artists. Currently we are in a production of Hamlet with a Catalan theatre company. Hopefully we can do that show for a few years. There have been various circus, dance, photographic or literary collaborations for the last 30 years that satisfy us creatively and also give us a chance to work and tour all over the world.”
It’s taken 20+ years for the band to get back to touring Australia and Jacques can’t wait.
“I love Australia. I really do. It’s a crazy place. It feels like the end of the world and then you walk into a café and it’s got pictures of the Queen on the walls, or you’re in a tropical park and suddenly you see a statue of the Duke of Wellington or Queen Victoria. It’s crazy. And I love the accent and the people. I’m going to museums and reading about Australian history. It’s an unusual place and I like unusual.”
Stout explains Covid was the main reason they haven’t been back. “We had plans for a tour just before it hit, but they were stopped like everybody else. So it’s a relief to be able to get back and play here. We first came over for the Adelaide Festival in ’98, I think, when we were invited by Robyn Archer for an accordion-themed section of the festival and it went very well for us. We also played a few shows in Melbourne at the same time. We have returned regularly, either as the band or in theatrical performances, and I am happy to be back and getting to as many places as we can. I still would like to play Darwin again before I die.”
Jacques describes the latest show as very high-quality and very well played – something you’d expect from a band that’s been together for 35 years.!
“The drummer was fairly new but he’s very good. There’s only three people on stage so it’s important that each one knows what they’re doing, plays well and makes a contribution theatrically as well as musically. I’ve lived a fairly extreme life quite on the edge and this collection of songs reflects that. I’ve known a lot of really crazy people living on the edge and I’m very comfortable to sing about them because I have a lot of empathy and understanding of those kinds of people.”
Stout says fans will should expect a set of new songs from the album Serenade from the Sewer, combined with some songs from other albums of the last few years. “Most of the songs are about Soho in London during the 1980s — vignettes of life, pre-internet, pre-censorship, pre-smartphone, when people slunk through badly lit backstreets into dark basements and seedy nightclubs. Expectations should be managed, so don’t expect many happy endings, but more gazing into the void and seeing your reflection leering back at you.”
With Martyn Jaques on vocals, accordion, piano and guitar, Adrian Stout on double bass, musical saw, theremin and vocals, and Budi Butenop on drums, they never cease to surprise, shock and entertain with their inimitable musical style, conjuring up the macabre magic of pre-war Berlin and fusing it with the savage edge of punk.
Inspired by the seedy underbelly of London’s Soho district in the 1980s, Serenade from the Sewer is a melancholic yet ironic reflection of life on the margins of society; a grotesquely beautiful tale framed by the band’s signature fusion of chanson, dark cabaret and operatic punk.
Says Jacques: ” I’ve never really sold myself. I’ve survived on talent alone. If you want to see what real talent is, come and see The Tiger Lillies. There’s lots of people out there who play the game; we stick our fingers up to the whole charade. You could almost say we are not a cabaret band, we are an anti-cabaret band. Maybe death oompa really is a better description.”
Stout adds: ” We are a unique musical experience that everybody should have at least once — who knows, we could be your next obsession?”
Saturday 21 February: Theatre Royal, Hobart
Sunday 22 February: Brisbane Powerhouse
Thursday 26 February: Brunswick Picture House, Brunswick Heads
Friday 27 February: The Embassy, Perth Festival
Saturday 28 February: Brunswick Ballroom, Melbourne
Sunday 1 March: The Vanguard, Sydney
Thursday 5 & Friday 6 March: Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide
Saturday 7 March: Theatre Royal, Castlemaine
