the tiger lillies - circus songs

.:: ‘Nerve tingling, and absolutely compelling…this is circus as it has never been seen before’ The Independent.


You can call them degrade. You can call them demented. But don't you dare call them a rock band.

London's Tiger Lillies is a three-piece band that combines influences of German cabaret, British music hall tunes, gypsy song and opera, with underlying tones of blues, jazz and even ska.

The group's latest album, The Gorey End, was released this year and created with San Francisco's Kronos Quartet. The album features the unpublished work of the late, wonderfully morbid storyteller, Edward Gorey.

Frontman Martyn Jacques "has no interest in contemporary music. He hates guitars...and isolates himself by listening to music from the 1920s and older," according to contrabassist Adrian Stout.

Finding rock n' roll to be boring and predictable, the group has managed to create an innovative style of music featuring Jacques singing opera-styled lead vocals, while playing the piano accordion. Stout plays a double bass and also sings, while percussionist Adrian Huges bangs away on drums, pots and pans, and plays with squeeze toys.

Despite their attitude towards modern music, The Tiger Lillies manage to incorporate a very controversial and edgy attitude in their music. Songs include subject matter of death, prostitution, drug addicts, drunks, various forms of blasphemy and twisted story telling.

"We don't sing about happy things very much," says Huges.

The band was formed in 1989 and began by playing in bars to a mostly drunken audience. Songs of macabre street life may have stemmed from Jacques spending over five years in London's Soho, living above a strip joint and indulging in unreputable activities.

Their drunken audience, over time, has expanded to include sober people far and wide. They now have a dozen albums to their credit, a large cult following in London, received two Oliver awards last year for their theatrical performance in ShockHeaded Peter, a "junk opera," and their fans include cartoonist Matt Groening, and actor Robin Williams.

The Tiger Lillies spend a great deal of time performing all over the world. Years of performing nightly have only recently brought success, though the band still mostly wallows in obscurity.

Their performance has been described as a "frenetic three-ring circus." Jacques sings about Europe's lowlife "with the voice of an angel." While clad in Victorian apparel, "his eyes roll up into his skull, his head wrenches to one side as if in spasm."

The musical pieces can vary from being dead serious to a sudden "absurd silent drumroll, playing drums with a blow-up sheep."

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