The frontman and founder of cult cabaret icons, The Tiger Lillies, talks about his past, future and dying onstage.

Some artists are born, others are made, and then some come from a place so transcendentally strange that they blaze a trail all of their own. Martyn Jacques, frontman and founder of those indomitable masters of madcap cabaret, The Tiger Lillies, falls into this category. For 26 years, Jacques alongside two co-conspirators, currently bassist Adrian Stout and drummer Jonas Golland, have shocked and serenaded his way around the world, delivering The Tiger Lillies’ very own brand of sublime and seedy storytelling. Ahead of the opening of their uniquely twisted version of Hamlet at the Perth International Arts Festival, Limelight’s online editor, Maxim Boon, caught up with Jacques in his dressing room to talk cult followings, the joy of sleaze and making music from beyond the grave.

Martyn Jacques

The Tiger Lillies defy definition. Some have called you “cabaret punk” or “Brechtian anarchists.” Personally, I’d call your sound “Kurt Weill in the asylum” —but I’d love to hear it from the horse’s mouth: how...