Interview with Tiger Lillies
words by Dake Aachen
photos by Tim George and Dmitry Gudkov
Tiger Lillies is a three-piece band from London that has almost davidbowieesque amount of released CDs. Not as diverse in their music as Phish or Mr. Bungle, they play something that can be characterized as “dark cabaret”. If you like music, then you have probably heard (or even been to) their Shockheaded Peter opera, the only breakthrough they had a decade ago and then went back to obscurity. We, at Doomsday Dept, think that Tiger Lillies have a lot more to offer than just one Broadway opera, but at the same time much less then Frank Zappa. Listen to the “Heroin and Cocaine” track from the 1994 album “Births, Marriages And Deaths” and to “Crack of Doom” from “Bad Blood and Blasphemy” of 1999 to get the idea of what to like about the band.
Band members:
Martyn Jacques [interviewed] — vocals, accordion, piano, guitar, harmonica.
Adrian Stout [interviewed] — double bass, musical saw, backing vocals.
Adrian Huge [reviewed] — drums and percussion, backing vocals.
Martyn Jacques
Doomsday Dept
Did you ever want to do a show in Honolulu?
Martyn Jacques
HO yes I would love to do a show in H, if anyone has it in their power to organize it then we would be thrilled.
Doomsday Dept
What do you think of Gogol Bordello?
Martyn Jacques
Hum, I’m terribly sorry but I’ve never heard of them so I have been to a few bordellos in my time.
Doomsday Dept
What do you think of Secret Chiefs 3?
Martyn Jacques
Ho dear I’ve never heard of them either, well this isn’t going very well is it!
Doomsday Dept
By this time you should already hate questions about Shockheaded Peter, but still – why did you have to kill all those characters in the opera?
Martyn Jacques
Well, I thought it was funny, it’s a pretty over the top book and quite a lot of the characters die in the original anyway so thought I should push it that little bit further. In the 1970”s they made a called the correct SHP, it tried to make everybody nice and kind. I just went the other way and made everyone that little more horrible.
Doomsday Dept
What do you think will be the next big thing in music? (Say, there was rock’n’roll, heavy metal, grunge, rap, nu-metal etc). What’s going to be the next thing that’d sweep the world?
Martyn Jacques
Well that’s completely obvious, the Tiger Lillies, no but seriously I haven’t got a clue as you can see of two of the above questions I have absolutely no idea of what is going on in contemporize music. I think that’s a good thing, which knows, maybe I’m even making music a little bit beyond the realm of fashion. I actually think that this all type of music kind of thing is rather record company/capitalist inspired. Let’s have a roster of H Metal bands and flog them. I think music should be about trying to make something personal and unique. Unfortunately I am in a minority.
Doomsday Dept
Martyn, everyone thinks of your lyrics as strange, weird and disturbing. So, did you ever want to write a song about Graham Chapman? If not, do you think you’d like to write one?
Martyn Jacques
Who’s Graham Chapman, he sound like he might have been a singer in a 60’s psychedelic band but I think you might be referring to some kind of mass murderer. Well I’ve written a few songs about mass murderers. Probably the most well known being Maria on our Bad Blood and Blasphemy album. That one is about Fred West. He used to like slowly torturing to death his victims. It’s got a bit of a satanic feel to it. One of the most beautiful and longest songs I’ve ever written.
Doomsday Dept
Don’t you think there’s already enough sorrow in this world and your macabre songs and music just do not cheer people up. Or do you think that if someone feels depressed after listening to your music, then this person is plain stupid and does not get the irony?
Martyn Jacques
Well, of course there is lot’s of irony in the TLs, there’s also lots of humor. I’ve seen people in our audience laugh to a level of hysteria. So sometimes the macabre nature of some of the songs is rather like a slap in the face to bring people out of this hysteria. I think there’s quite a lot of Freud and Jung in my lyrics. I’m not really bothered if people are depressed after listening to my music. They’re probably depressed anyway. But I do get the feeling that some of the people that are offended by it should perhaps remember things like psycho analysis not to mention black humor and as you say irony.
Doomsday Dept
You have 21 albums up to this date. You make 8 more and you’ll beat David Bowie’s record. Do you think you’ll ever deplete this world of weird shit, drugs, prostitution, violence and etc?
Martyn Jacques
Well, I hardly think that I have it in my power to deplete this world of anything. My utter insignificance is obvious but then I suppose that’s quite a healthy attitude to have to life.
Doomsday Dept
How did you come up with the band’s name? Any connection to Lilium lancifolium? You like the flower and did not want to sound too medical? Or did you think, “That’s a nice flower, we like it, but if we adopt the Lilium lancifolium name, then people would go like, Hey, have you heard that new single by Lilium la-shit-something-I-don’t-remember-the-name-so-fuck-it-haveyou-heard-that-new-David-Bowie-record?”?
Martyn Jacques
You sound like you might be a rather silly person. I didn’t even know that that was the medical name. I think it’s quite a good name don’t you? A bit sort of sexually ambiguous. In our early days. When we were even more unknown than we re now people would hear the CD of the band and expect me to be a woman in tiger skin called Lilly. I suppose vocally that makes me a bit of a drag act.
Doomsday Dept
Martyn, can you come up right now, right on the spot with a limerick? Or would you say that’s a stupid cliché Americans have about Brits?
Martyn Jacques
My friend gave me a wonderful book with many obscene limericks in it, unfortunately I so much trouble trying to remember the lyrics of my own songs and have so many overflowing my memory banks that I have no space to remember there (sic!) wonderful disgusting little poems.
Doomsday Dept Review
Well, there you have... Or should we perhaps say, “Their you have it”, because Martyn Jacques, being not only British, but also the band’s frontman, vocalist and songwriter, does not type very well. But who cares, early in his career Martyn’s falsetto was confused with the one of a female, and, you know, chicks don’t write very good. All the great writers were men. But of course there are many “women of letters” in the history; it’s just we can’t remember any right now, on the spot. Except for Eve Ensler, of course. But she’s not a writer. She’s... Well, read the manifesto on page 12. Also, we wish nobody ever called Graham Chapman a 60’s singer, although he definitely did a bit of singing, “He’s a lumberjack, and he’s okay. – He sleeps all night and he works all day.” Confusing Chapman’s name with any mass murderer probably pays more respect to the man, but it’s all about Martyn’s mind drowned deep in the stereotypes of prostitutes, losers, drug addicts, maniac killers.
Adrian Stout
Doomsday Dept
Did you ever want to do a show in Honolulu?
Adrian Stout
Why not, I think an active volcanic region is the ideal setting for a Tiger Lillies gig. We would play “Crack of Doom” and the island would erupt.
Doomsday Dept
What do you think of Gogol Bordello?
Adrian Stout
They seem like a decent enough rock and roll band, doing it for the kids. Like a 21st century Pogues, combing punk, folk and rock. That performance with Madonna was slightly distasteful and certainly made me respect them just a little less. But at the end of the day it’s all showbiz and they need to get exposure to sell records like every other band.
Doomsday Dept
What do you think of Secret Chiefs 3?
Adrian Stout
Never heard of them.
Doomsday Dept
By this time you should already hate questions about Shockheaded Peter, but still — why did you have to kill all those characters in the opera?
Adrian Stout
Naughty children must be punished, that is Nature’s way. We followed the book but just upped the death count. People love to see puppets murdered, there’s no guilt in it.
Doomsday Dept
What do you think will be the next big thing in music? (Say, there was rock’n’roll, heavy metal, grunge, rap, nu-metal etc). What’s going to be the next thing that’d sweep the world?
Adrian Stout
I dread to think what combination will be thrust out next for people to buy. As everything is recycled now it probably be something familiar with something underground, folk-metal maybe. Electro polka. Baroque and Roll. Who cares? Not me.
Doomsday Dept
Don’t you think there’s already enough sorrow in this world and your macabre songs and music just do not cheer people up. Or do you think that if someone feels depressed after listening to your music, then this person is plain stupid and does not get the irony?
Adrian Stout
Our songs are more like therapy than conventional music, some people react well to treatment and some spiral into depression. Those ones usually leave the concert during the show and I can’t say I blame them for it. Most people stay, laugh and enjoy themselves. If people feel sad after hearing us then they usually have things in their own lives that they wish to ignore and hearing our songs stirs up the dark waters of their subconscious. Many of our fans work in the care professions, social work, mental health, hospitals etc and they say that our concerts help them cope in a small way with their lives. You have to laugh.
Doomsday Dept
George Carlin (stand-up comedian) used to say that white folks should never play blues, because this music is only for black people. What do you say?
Adrian Stout
So only white 18th century Europeans can play classical music then? That’s the biggest load of crap, anyone can play any type of music, whether they can play it WELL is another matter entirely. David Thomas of Per Ubu thinks that only Americans can play Rock and Roll, which I find questionable too. Art is theft so we have a duty and a right to steal from any cultural item and create new patterns with it. Nothing is sacred, maybe that’s why blues is so redundant in its present form and rap has superseded it.
Doomsday Dept
We are sure you have something to comment about Alan Wilder’s last Recoil record “Subhuman”? What’s your opinion about that CD?
Adrian Stout
See my answers above, seems to be the case with “Subhuman”. I liked the sound of the cd, and I have been listing to older Depeche Mode recently and liked that a lot. He seems to be making adult electronic music, and I respect his approach.
Doomsday Dept
So do we... You have 21 albums up to this date. You make 8 more and you’ll beat David Bowie’s record. Do you think you’ll ever deplete this world of weird shit, drugs, prostitution, violence and etc?
Adrian Stout
No (not while there is so much of it in the world) but we have to see if it is something that can provide fresh inspiration. Maybe we will turn away from the dark side of life? Unlikely though.
Doomsday Dept
What’s your favorite beer? (No puns).
Adrian Stout
Unpasteurized Pilsner Urquel from the barrel.
Doomsday Dept
How did you come up with the band’s name? Any connection to Lilium lancifolium? You like the flower and did not want to sound too medical? Or did you think, “That’s a nice flower, we like it, but if we adopt the Lilium lancifolium name, then people would go like, Hey, have you heard that new single by Lilium la-shit-something-I-don’t-remember-the-nameso-fuck-it-have-you-heard-that-new-David-Bowie-record?”?
Adrian Stout
It has a violent/beautiful quality to it, both male and female. People used to think we were a female band if they had only heard Martyn singing. Then when we turned up for concerts they would say, “Oh, but you are men?”
Doomsday Dept Review
Hands down (perks up), Adrian Stout is the better part (not idiomatically, literally) of Tiger Lillies. Not only is he more informed and erudite, he also has a much better command of English than Martyn Jacques. It’s not that we have the right to expertise, but Adrian plays good bass — and it’s all we really care about.
Adrian Huge
Adrian Huge refused to give us interview by silently ignoring our questions (of which there weren’t many). Good for him. We can’t blame Adrian.
Doomsday Dept Review
It’s probably the best way have a good and concise review here at Doomsday Dept by not acknowledging the fact of being printed on our pages. All we can say is that Adrian Huge plays drums and is good at it, even when drumming with toy babies. He also has good teeth.
