Interview: Universal storytelling through songs of sex, love, death and family

Eric Kuhlmann is Adelaide based musician and singer/songwriter. Having performed a critically acclaimed season at Adelaide’s Feast Festival with his show Red Light Songs of Lust, Love and Death in November 2011, he is now taking it to the iconic cabaret venue The Butterfly Club to be part of 2012 Midsumma in Melbourne.  As he prepares for the Melbourne season that runs from January 26th to 29th, Eric spoke to Cabaret Confessional about his show, the creative process, how it evolved, the universal themes that many find confronting and his thoughts on Meow Meow.

How would you summarise your show Red Light Songs of Lust, Love and Death in your own words?

Sex, love, death and family. Family most of all, particularly the families we create when our blood families don’t give us everything we need - maybe because they live on the other side of the world, or maybe because you’re gay and your dad hates poofters.

What inspired you to write this show?

It was a combination of meeting and falling in love with my partner Stumpy, which sparked an intensely productive period of songwriting for me and then receiving an Arts SA grant to tour to Perth for the Pride Festival there. Suddenly I had all this new material to perform as well as a high profile venue to perform it in. So that was the genesis of the show back in 2009, although, it has changed a lot since then.

You’ve said your show is ‘autobiographical fiction’. What was the reason for structuring your show that way?

It wasn’t really a conscious decision; it’s just my natural way of writing and performing. My background is a singer/songwriter rather than a cabaret artist, meaning I usually perform in noisy pubs rather than sedate theatres. Even though I don’t usually have anything scripted for those shows, I’ll often tell a bit of a story before I sing a song. When you’re making stories up on the spot, there’s always a bit of truth behind them, even if on the surface, they’re complete fiction.

What was the creative process like for this show?

I’ve been writing songs for so long that they kind of write themselves – it’s not a conscious intellectual process for me. The hard part was choosing what songs to include – the show in Perth in 2009 had 20 songs in it. It was way too long, but it gave me a solid skeleton to hang the flesh of the story on. Then I went through a long process of cutting songs that weren’t essential to the story. That left me with a few gaps, so I wrote a couple of new songs to bridge the gaps.

The final stage in the process was to work with my director Michelle Outram – we cut a couple more songs plus we cut individual verses or choruses or even individual lines from songs. We were doing the same thing with the script. Our goal was to cut 13 minutes from the show because our dramaturg Stephen House had suggested we should, and I’d learnt early on to trust Stephen’s opinion.

There are many colourful characters that appear in Red Light Songs of Love, Lust and Death. How did you come up with them?

The characters have elements of real people, but they’re tributes rather than portraits. For example, one of the characters is based on a combination of 2 real people, but he’s not really like either of them. I often exaggerate or ignore key character traits or events. It’s a very selective truth and memory. Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story, not when people are paying to be entertained.

How much of your own experience and thoughts have you reflected into your songs?

All my songs reflect my life in some way, even if it’s just a story I overheard on the train or a joke I heard at the pub. I always start with something real, but usually I build something new around it. Something I think an audience might like. Or something that’ll move them, whether they like it or not.

Your show confronts many topics that are considered taboo, in particular, lust and death. What made you choose those topics in your show?

I like themes that are universal. Everyone fucks and dies, no matter what society or historical period they live in. A lot of great art from the western cannon and other cultures deals with sex, love and death. Think of fertility worship since antiquity and the rituals around death that every society has. I’d like to think I could translate the show in French and it would be just as powerful to a French audience. Or to a Hindi audience. Or Turkish. I’d love to go to Istanbul. Sex, love and death really are universal and timeless.

How did you discover cabaret?

I’m gay, so I was born with the gene. Plus my father is a musician who played in old school jazz bands and had an awesome record collection, so I was surrounded by great music, live and on LP. And my mum is French, which means I grew up with Edith Piaf and the French Chanson as well.

What is cabaret to you?

It’s the art and craft of telling stories using songs. It’s being completely open to an audience, in an intimate venue where the audience has the option of walking away if they get bored.

Who or what has influenced you the most as a performer?

Great songwriters, especially the one’s who’ve been told they can’t sing. And great singers. The ultimate is someone who is both. People like Leonard Cohen, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Bjork, Jacques Brel, Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Billy Bragg, Mark Eitzel.

What is the most memorable cabaret performance you’ve seen?

Meow Meow at a Feast fundraiser in Adelaide a few years ago. Incredible! She had people giving her piggybacks and lifting her up on tables and carrying her around the theatre on them.  Plus she’s an amazing singer, storyteller and is hilarious too. She is a total performer who knows how to work an audience to the extreme. Genius.

Red Light Songs of Lust, Love and Death starring Eric Kuhlmann will open at The Butterfly Club in Melbourne on January 26th and will run until the 29th. For bookings, click here. 

Related post:

2012 Midsumma Festival to open with sizzling cabaret acts

Feast Festival Review: Red Light Songs of Lust, Love and Death

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