Soroff On
Amanda Palmer
The Dresden Dolls singer and "Cabaret" star talks mimes, pop music and the small of Neil Gaiman’s back.
Photo Credit: Tracy Graham
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Currently appearing as the emcee in the American Repertory Theater’s production of Cabaret, Amanda Palmer is a performer, director and composer best known as the frontwoman and pianist for the punk-cabaret band The Dresden Dolls. Born and raised in Lexington, Palmer, 34, attended Wesleyan University and, from 1997 to 2003, worked as a “living statue” (known as the “Eight-Foot Bride”) in Harvard Square. After three albums with the Dresden Dolls, she went solo and in 2008 released Who Killed Amanda Palmer, accompanied by an art book that includes short stories by writer (and fiancé) Neil Gaiman. She has won numerous Boston Music Awards and was named “The Social Media Queen of Rock ’N’ Roll” by The Huffington Post. Palmer lives in Boston.
Amanda Palmer: Probably, but I’ve only seen one really fantastic production of it: In 2001, Steve Bogart did it at Lexington High School, which is the whole reason I’m doing it with him at the A.R.T.
So screw Alan Cumming and his Tony award?
I didn’t see it, but I’m sure it was fantastic. I’ve seen four other productions, all over the world—Madrid, Cambridge, Germany, but none of them moved me the way Steve Bogart’s did.
I actually met him recently, and he is good friends with our music director in this show.
I think my take is far less snarky and aggressive. My approach to the whole show is that these characters are very real, not two-dimensional representations of ideas. I’m a woman playing a gender-bent man, and I think the approach I take is far more empathetic than people are used to seeing with the emcee.
[Laughs.] Why can’t you have both? I want bondage burlesque.
Absolutely. The Dresden Dolls is what we call it when Brian [Viglione] and I get together and beat the shit out of our instruments.
He’s working on a bunch of different musical projects, but don’t be surprised if at some point the Dresden Dolls recollide.
Hell, no. He was far too opinionated. [Laughs.]
No one, really, but I think I wrote it while I was in a relationship with Ad Frank. But that song is about loneliness and fear of intimacy.
I’m embarrassed to say I’m not that familiar with her music, but what I do know I think is amazing. I’ve never seen her perform, and I really want to.
AP: Well, Regina Spektor I know and have a history with, because she opened for the Dresden Dolls eons ago, and we did a tour together. We knew that she was going to be stratospheric. She just blew everyone away.
I just downloaded the new CD by Down System and the new Arcade Fire, and they’re just sitting there, waiting to be listened to. Then there’s one disc I listen to while cleaning my house: Gaba Kulka. She’s Polish and sings both in Polish and in English. She’s a force.
I don’t have a f***in’ purse! Who do you think I am, Paris Hilton?
I don’t eat breakfast cereal! You’re killing me!
No. If it’s a good day, I meditate. If it’s a bad day, I go straight to the computer and start twittering.
Every generation needs something goth.
You just do. There is no trick. You just f***in’ do it. No secret.
I’m not a fan, although I did study very briefly with Marcel Marceau, and good mimes—the great, powerful, emotional mimes—are fantastic. But those are one in a million.
Right now, I think it would be a sock puppet that someone recently made for the as-yet-unreleased Labyrinth spoof I created with a bunch of people in Scotland. It’s that worm in the wall.
I would’ve said, “Why’s it gonna take 20 f***in’ years? I don’t wanna wait 20 f***in’ years!” That’s a long time!
There have been many, but crowd-surfing to “Ride of the Valkyries” at Coachella is up there.
Not when it’s for AfterEllen.com. [Laughs.]
OK. Low-maintenance vintage explosion.
Small of back.
I’m kind of a tits kinda girl.
Super sexy, of course.
It’s how it sinks to the bottom of the ocean.
Edward.
No.
I don’t think there is one.
Probably something by Beckett, just so that I could’ve been him.
I don’t have any dream roles because I never think about acting.
Brad Heald, in the basement at his birthday party, in a closet filled with ski equipment. Unforgettable. I was probably 12 or 13.
Ashes Glenn.
Get me a contract.
Well, Glenn makes me think anal. And ashes, y’know, there’s people with burn fetishes. They must be out there.
Avril Lavigne’s second record. My ultimate guilty pop pleasure.
I think their power isn’t in originality, it’s in how they’re running their businesses, and they’re both masters at it. Creativity and originality are apples and oranges. The problem with comparing them is that it’s not 1984. Madonna broke ground that Lady Gaga is re-covering and blowing up, but they grew out of completely different cultural landscapes. But both are master appropriators.
Yeah, but it’s an important machine. There’s always been and always will be pop music, and anyone who’s not into Lady Gaga should appreciate the fact that she’s filling a really important and eternal cultural role.
I’m going to say Mae West. [Laughs.] I really appreciate her balls-out attitude.
