If you heard of a club whose founding members include Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Amy Winehouse, you’d probably want to join right?
The tricky part is the entry fee: not only do you have to have talent to match the artists listed above, you also have to die at some point in your 27th year, because each of the above artists died at that age. By Kurt Cobain’s death people were talking about it, and then with Amy Winehouse the 27 Club became fully entrenched in showbiz folklore; a tale to inspire fear in the minds of the young and talented.
The Adelaide Cabaret Festival has decided to explore the legend, and the stories and music of the club’s founding members. Returning to the festival after her successful solo show last year, Carla Lippis is honoured to be paying homage to these singers whose work she has admired her whole life.
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“The show itself is a look at their lives. I knew them all quite well but I didn't know a lot in-depth about their personal stories. They lived a lot in a short amount of time, that's for sure. What's that saying by Neil Young? 'Better to burn out than fade away'.”
While there are some crazy theories out there about the mysterious club, Carla’s take on the whole thing is quite level-headed. “There's a lot of mythology around it but, if you think about it, they all rose to fame around the same age and, after four or five years of being on this intense roller coaster ride, their spirits had had enough. Their souls had had enough and decided to check out.
“Their stories are all so intense. If you look at someone like Kurt Cobain, for example, he had it thrust upon him that he was the spokesperson for a generation, for a whole group of people, in the early '90s. And that probably wasn't something he chose or wanted. But it was thrust upon him that that's who he was. And the pressure of it led him down a dark path.
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“Amy Winehouse was followed around by the media incessantly, for years. They were literally out the front of her house, every day. The pressure of that must've been huge. It's no wonder they turn to substances just to kind of be able to cope with all of that. You just want to play music but all these other things come along with it and if you're not prepared for that then it can be pretty tough.”
While she may not buy into them, Carla loves the crazy conspiracy theories that come up, not just about the 27 Club, but about music in general. “I've heard different ones in different areas of music. Especially in the hip hop genre. Like when NWA came out, it was right around the time prisons were privatised. And this gangster rap music was engineered to incite violence among the lower socio-economic groups in America. Hence more prison inmates, hence more money for the people running the prisons.
“I think conspiracy theories are compelling, I think they can be entertaining. I think perhaps there may be some valid points in them. Whether they're 100 per cent accurate, I don't know.”
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For every conspiracy theory circulating on the internet, there’s one filled with superstition about demons and curses (there’s even one that beautifully combines the two, claiming in all seriousness that Amy Winehouse was ritualistically sacrificed by the Illuminati as an offering to Kelly Osbourne). While still skeptical, Carla has a little bit more personal experience with these sorts of ideas (superstitions and curses that is, not Illuminati sacrifices). “I grew up with a grandmother who was very superstitious. And Italian culture in general is quite superstitious. There are little things I still kind of hold onto a bit. Like the concept of the malocchio, which is when someone puts a curse on you. There's this whole ritual that you need to go through to get rid of it.
“You might have a headache that won’t go away, or a really heavy feeling or you're extra tired or unusually achy. This means maybe someone's said something bad about you or directed some negative energy your way and it's hovering over you like a thick blanket. Then you have to do the ritual to get rid of it. People actually ring my sister to break the malocchio.”
While superstition is an embedded part of her culture, Carla admits she is still a bit of a skeptic. What she does wholeheartedly believe in is intuition. “I am a big believer that the feelings you get from things give you a clear message to your soul. I like to keep an open mind. I don't necessarily need solid proof because that just takes the fun out of everything.”
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And Carla has recent, first-hand experience to back her beliefs. “A band called Sacri Couri [Sacred Heart] found me in Australia and flew me over to do two months of touring and a bunch of shows with them. I sang three or four tracks on their album. It was such an amazing opportunity because I would never have gone if they hadn’t said ‘we want you to be on our next record, we’re going to tour, we want to fly you over’. I would’ve never gone back to Italy. And it completely changed my approach to everything I do.”
Carla has dabbled in many genres of music, from country to cabaret, but her trip to Italy took her back to her roots. Swept off her feet by the music of the Golden Era of Italian pop, Carla wrote her own record around the genre. Spanning from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, the music is referred to as ‘yeye’.
Carla laughs as she explains: “it comes from the English words – you know ‘yeah! yeah!’ – made popular by British music and bands like The Beatles. It’s the music my grandparents listened to when I was a kid and I never really paid any notice. But now, when I look back I realise how much I love it and how much I connect to it. And when I sing it I felt like I’m truly being me. And it’s fun, it’s so fun. There’s a lot of spaghetti-western-style guitars. You go to a show and can’t help but dance to it.”
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With two new albums and the discovery of her true musical love, Carla has a lot of positive energy flowing through her. And she is directing all of it into the rehearsals for 'The 27 Club'. “It’s exciting, especially exciting to sing and play with the other guys that are involved: Hayley Mary, Henry Wagons, Daniel Champagne. They’re all really good at what they do, amazing artists. And I’m really honoured to be a part of it. And the cabaret festival is unlike any other music festival.
“Cabaret is in the moment, you experience it and it’s gone. And you’re just left with this rush of energy from it. And the only way you can ever experience it again is to go and see another show. And that’s such a special way of enjoying music. It’s so much fun.”
'The 27 Club' plays the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, 17-19 June.
