We’ve been rehearsing and writing and photographing and playing dress ups and we’re so close to being ready to perform KICK THE BUCKET for you! We’ve just got a few more things to do, but it is very very close to being finished. It is the most complex show I’ve done to date and it’s got almost everything I could wish for (we did think tonight how awesome it would be to have Bonesy fly in and out on a wire, but I think we might leave that one for Broadway). Nicky and I don’t usually do duo stuff, since being in our band is so fun, but this was a great chance at a collaboration and has been a nice chunky project to sink our choppers into.
Before we started, we both researched death and dying: I was interested mostly in people’s stories and visual vignettes and feelings and death as part of a natural cycle. I had a bit of a creative and personal dead patch over Spring/Summer last year which was really tricky for me (you might have noticed that we still haven’t released our newest album: it’s still quite a way off!) but did get me thinking about the natural cycle of things and how we need death, winter and the night to be able to rest and renew. This show in part is me trying to process that. I’ve started to think about it more like compost. I would like to be buried in a composting pod, btw.
Nicky got stuck into researching funeral rituals, particularly rhythms (her being a drummer and all). I’m always amazed at what her drumming adds to the skeleton songs I write. We joked tonight that she gives them feet and fat! But she also makes them dance. I do so love to dance.
We’ve been having so much fun with such a tricky subject. We’ve done our best to balance our humour with grace and space for people’s feelings- I hope you can come along, it’s quite a special thing for us and we would love to share it with you.
Ps I’d just like to also take a minute to acknowledge the amazing people I have had in my life who have died in my lifetime so far. Dear ones, I couldn’t possibly have imagined at the time of my immediate sorrow that your deaths would have in some way inspired songs in a show quite like this, as funny as this, as moving as this. I am still surprised that it never gets less sad that I don’t get to see you or hug you, but I am forever grateful that laughter and tears come from the same well and my well just keeps getting deeper the longer I live. ox MM