Legendary Post-Punk, Cult Cabaret Superstars The Tiger Lillies

Legendary post-punk, cult cabaret superstars The Tiger Lillies make their long-awaited return to Australia with a new concert celebrating the weird, the macabre and those that society has abandoned.
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. Martyn Jacques answers a few questions about the performance.

Adelaide Festival has a reputation for embracing the artistically daring. What does performing Serenade from the Sewer here mean to you at this point in your career?
I think we are, by definition, artistically daring. Every time we go on stage it is an act of rebellion against the mainstream. They are the enemy suffocating creativity. They’re in it for the money, the fame. It’s sociological we sing about the downtrodden and repressed.

You’ve played Australia many times, but this is your first Adelaide Festival appearance in years. What memories or impressions of Adelaide stick with you from past tours?
I remember the upside down accordion church of Robyn Archer!

This show is inspired by the “seedy underbelly” of 1980s Soho — a world long since gentrified. What emotional or artistic thread from that era still feels urgent enough to build a whole performance around?
Nothing really changes, suffering is suffering, poverty is poverty, addiction is addiction. I’m singing about the underclass – it could be anywhere any time. But of course it’s a cold night in Soho and that brings up images.

The album and show mix melancholy, irony, and grotesque beauty. Which song from Serenade from the Sewer feels like the emotional core of the project, and why?
There is no one song, the mood builds, the feeling grows. The songs are about different people, some are dead memories of tragedy and some survived. Every night I feel the emotion. The ghosts I knew or loved who have gone.

Your music often gives voice to society’s abandoned, forgotten, or morally ambiguous characters. What draws you to those figures, and how do you keep that world fresh after sixty albums?
I met one of them in Sydney. They have survived – I felt quite proud of them. They could never fit but almost miraculously they survived.

The Guardian once called your work “anarchic opera and gypsy street theatre,” while the New York Times called you “unique and subversive.” Do you feel those labels still fit in 2026?
I can’t imagine how they couldn’t be. It’s not like it could go out of fashion because it never was fashionable. Of course, there are people who treat you as fashionable or unfashionable but I just keep talking about the human condition, its dark truths and extremities.

You’ve always blended humour with horror. How do you decide when a moment should be grotesque, when it should be funny, and when it should be heartbreakingly sincere?
I tell the story and the humour or horror or sadness emerges from that. I feel it a lot – sometimes it’s quite exhausting – but it’s a great privilege to be able to tell my stories to an appreciative audience.

After thirty five plus years together, how has the creative dynamic between Martyn, Adrian, and Budi evolved? What’s changed — and what’s stayed the same?
I think it just got better and better. Practice makes perfect and years of experience show.

You’ve never had a record label, yet you’ve built a global cult following. What freedoms has that independence given you, especially when creating something as specific as Serenade from the Sewer?
I worked out fairly early on that it would never work in the record business. “You can only make one album every five years, Mr Jacques!”

Your instrumentation — accordion, double bass, musical saw, theremin — is practically a character in itself. How do you decide which instrument “voices” a particular story?
Yes, and nobody really uses our instrumentation. The slow songs are usually on piano. It’s very important and unique, our approach.

This tour takes you from Hobart to Brisbane to Perth to Adelaide and beyond. Does the Australian audience respond differently to your darker material compared to European crowds?
English as a first language has an effect in some countries – we appear on daytime television!

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch The Tiger Lillies at the Adelaide Festival March 5-6, tickets here…