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July 4, 2025 14 mins
Karlis Zaid and Aurora Kurth talk to Subculture about Loving The Alien.
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, listeners, if you are a David Bowie fan, you'll
want to take a listen right now because there is
a brand new show on in Melbourne called Loving the
Alien that we're going to explore right now. This is
a show that I'm sure a lot of you out
there are going to want to want to go along
and see. So we thought today we would actually get
the people behind the show on for a little bit

(00:24):
of an interview. We've got Carlos as a ed on
the show, who is the creator, performer, and also Aurora
Kirth who's one of the performers for the show as well.
So without any other further ADID, welcome to the program, Carlis,
and also Aurora.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thanks very much.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
So Carlis, I'll start with you because you are the cream.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
I like the very European by the way, which my
Polish relatives would say you can just say Carluss, but
I do like.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Carli's Okay, all right, So Carlos, tell us tell us
a little bit about how this show first came together.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
That's an excellent question.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Look, to be honest, I started first thinking about writing
a show with David Bowie's music in it about ten
years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Auroral note, and we mentioned in the show that I'm an.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
Absolute Bowie tragic and I had made no apologies for that.
So I thought about writing a show with his music
in it when he was still alive, true story, and
then I shelve when it was looking ready to go, I.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Shelved the project for a very long time because, of course.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
He passed away in twenty sixteen, so I sat it
on the shelf for a long time because I didn't
want to be seen in any way to be cashing
in on my heroes passing.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
And then around about during.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
That wonderful sort of miasma that was COVID, I revisited
the ideas again, and then I knew I had to
have Aurora in the show because.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
I know how she can respond to this.

Speaker 3 (02:01):
But she's kind of my news, to be honest, because
I've written songs with her in mind to sing in
the past. And I also wanted Andrew Patterson, who's my
musical director. Keys Pianoforte has done all the arrangements because
he's a freaking genius, and he peeve selected another guy,
Aaron Sirianna, who I didn't know, but they played together

(02:24):
on a whole lot of musical tours.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Andrew's done pretty much every musical that comes to town.
So yeah, I just ended up having this incredible.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Dream team to make my reality, make my dream a reality.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
So, Chris, when did you become a David Bowie fan?
Was that something that happened at a very very early
age for you? And I guess Aurora as well. What
were your thoughts on David Bowie before you started working
on this show?

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Rory take it away? Oh?

Speaker 5 (02:56):
Okay, Well, I am not a Bowie tragic like my
dear friend Carlos, but I've always really enjoyed Bowie's music.
But I probably don't know the depths of his catalog
in any way, shape or home. That's reminiscent of Carlos's
knowledge of every utterance he has ever made. But yeah,

(03:19):
I look back Intmarie school. We used to dance to
Let's Dance and Fame, and so you know, it's.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Been it's been decades. Let's just say it's been a
few decades. I think we're on the same page in
that one.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
As far as that one goes, Yeah, look in a
similar way, possibly possibly more impactful. Maybe my mother, I
can remember, used to play Diamond Dogs on vinyl when
I was a kid, when I was very little, and
that along with the War of the World soundtrack, you know, as.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
A John Wayne. Yeah, John Wayne used to have so
much more sense. Now used to scare the living crap
out of me. Doesn't actually noticed.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
I used to scare the living crap out of me
because the Diamond Dogs album was kind of Bowie's version
of George elwas Georgia was nineteen eighty four, right, yeah,
putting onto vinyl. So it's a very apart from the
hit songs, it's a very unnerving album.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
And I've always been intrigued, even from an early age.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
I've been intrigued with things that I can't quite work out,
things that give me nightmares basically, and so that started
a very deep and long fascination with Bowie, who's always,
you know, had the sort of light and the dark.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
So I am the long time.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
I have to ask, as well, how was that accepted
at school? Because you're talking to someone here who became
through my dad's work, obsessed by Kiss when I was
a kid, and I turned up in prep with my
Kiss lunch box, my Kiss T shirt and all the
other kids in the class, being in a country town,
were into ac DC and Cold Chisel, so it didn't

(05:12):
go down too well with the other kids. How was
it accepted for you having such a fascination with Bowie?

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Well, when you say kiss, I'll just jump in quickly
because that was one of my other fascinators.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
I cared not.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
I mean I liked Don't get me wrong, I liked
Dakadaga as well, but I cared not for what the
the kids with the rat Rats tales and the pierced
ears in primary school might have cared about me and
I Actually, true story, I forced three of my friends
to put all the kiss makeup on and dress up

(05:45):
as Kiss to the best of my ability, a disburs
of my ability and their ability because my mum had
a bass guitar and I put the bass guitar on,
and I learned the riff to share Know Something, and
I made all of my mates get up and mime
to sew know Something in front of most of I

(06:06):
think it was grade free and yeah, while I played,
I actually played the bassline from Shaw. Not only they
were quite they really didn't want to do it from memory,
but I made them do it. So yeah, it was
a Bowie fixation. Although yeah, he used to just scare
me for a long time until I really got into

(06:27):
his music. But Kiss kind of scared me and I
was obsessed with them as well, So Kiss kind of
came a little bit before Bowie. But bow was hot
on Kiss's heel high heels.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
You know Australia that story.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, and now you two are round, So Aurora.

Speaker 5 (06:51):
So Aurora.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
When Carlos first came to you with this idea for
the show, what did you think when you first sat
down and started to look at the idea. Was it
something that drew you in straight away or was it
something that you went away and thought about for a
little while.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Oh, look, I.

Speaker 5 (07:08):
Don't tend to think too long about doing a show
with Carlotts. You know, we drive each other absolutely bonkers.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
But you know we do.

Speaker 5 (07:18):
We do have a good time when we work together.
So he basically could have come with any show and
I would have said yes, really, but this one.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
I knew it would be.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
I knew that the songs would be beautifully arranged, which
they are by Andrew Patterson, and I knew that with
Andrew playing and producing and arranging, it would be a
killer sound, and I loved singing with Carlos, so it
was kind of a no brainer really. I mean I

(07:51):
didn't really give it terribly much thought at all. I
possibly should have because now you know, it's probably one
of the most challenging vocally vocally challenging shows for me
that I've done, because.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
But you are nailing it.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Can I just say we opened last night. I'll let
you in on a little something something so I made Aurora.
I said, you're going to be singing rock and roll
suicide and you're going to be singing ziggy Starters, two
of the biggest rock and roll numbers in the show,
and she absolutely kills it.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
Just so, yeah.

Speaker 5 (08:32):
It's a challenge, but it's super fun. I mean, the
music is dynamic and there's so many different kind of vocally,
there's a lot that goes on, so I kind of
you I get to use the full breadth of my range,
and watching Carlos sing Bowie is always at a real
treat pain he embodies, he embodies it. So you know,

(08:55):
if you want to see someone really get into Bowie
songs and take you on a journeys, Carlos.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Well, that's very everything except the spiky red mullet or moulay.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
I was actually going to ask that about performing Bowie's tracks,
because when we used to do our Crosswire TV show,
bands used to come in and they used to close
the night with a cover, and we used to give
them a whole range of tracks that they could cover,
and we had more than one band over those years
that would pick a Bowie song off the list, and
then two days before they used to come in to
do it in the studio, they'd be like, we've decided

(09:34):
to change the song that we're going to do because
that one's just a little bit too difficult vocally. Tell
us a little bit about performing Bowie's music and where
the challenges come from.

Speaker 5 (09:46):
That's why I was saying, I probably should have thought
about it before.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
It just jumped in, you know.

Speaker 5 (09:52):
And then as I got the songs that we're doing,
I realized it get there incredibly difficult vocally a lot
of them, and I kind of I've just spent the
last six months learning opera for another show, and then
I do a lot of kind of show tunes, musical theater,

(10:14):
sort of belting. But this was neither of those tiles.
We're going to fly for this show. This really needs
a lot of kind of rock growl, and so I've
just been learning another way to use by voice, and
I yeah, I'm it.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
It was a massive.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
Challenge, but I hope and pray that I'm getting away
with it.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
And I'm David, she's channeling Janice Joblin. She's way way
too hard on herself. She's absolutely smashing it.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
Well.

Speaker 5 (10:47):
Well, I think the thing is, though, that the stories
in the songs are what I'm the kind of person who.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
If a song has a story.

Speaker 5 (10:55):
And I can tap into the story, then the voice
kind of takes care of itself and the right kind
of sound will come.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Just so, Chlus, I should have asked this before when
you first had the idea for this show and then
you kind of sholved it because of Bowie's unfortunate passing.
How long did it actually take you to come up
with the concept that we see on stage now?

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Well, I never wanted to be a tribute show, that's
the first thing to say now, With no absolutely no
difference to tribute shows.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
That just wasn't for me, right.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
I wasn't going to dress up as Bowie or pretend
to be Bowie at any point.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
That's just not how I was going to roll.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
So it's us on stage pretty much. It's myself Bowie
tragic Aurora Bowie appreciator, possibly sometimes skeptic. Ah and I
wrote that deliberately, deliberately into the show. But the whole
what the show hangs on is well, a massive catalog

(12:04):
of Bowie bangers, like you're going to hear the songs
you're going to want to hear.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
But also.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
What we talk about during the show, the whole premise
of the show is we find out who the real
David Bowie was. That's what Loving the Alien is all about.
Our promise to you, our commitment to you the audience,
is that at the end of the night we will
answer the question who.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Was the real David Bowie?

Speaker 3 (12:33):
And I know more about David Bowie than anyone in Australia,
I believe.

Speaker 6 (12:39):
Okay, So for all of our listeners out there, for
all of it, for all of our listeners out there,
Loving the Alien is on at Art Center Melbourne, the Showroom.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
It's on until Sunday night. So if you want to.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Go, gotta be quick, only four more shows.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
Definitely if you want to grab tickets to go along
and see it. You can grab them from the Melbourne
Art Center box office or there will be a link
up on our subculture Entertainment dot com website as well
where you can grab those tickets. I guess to finish
off for both of you, I'd like to ask, what
would you like to say to our audience out there

(13:17):
before they come along and check out this amazing show?

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Rory?

Speaker 5 (13:23):
Oh, well, look, what I certainly appreciated last night at
opening night was the outfits of the audience. You know,
dress how dress how you are inspired to when you
think of Bowie. That was quite We had quite a
showing out into the audience.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
It wasn't It was a two way thing. Some lightning
bulb faces out there. That's the show.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
And if you can match it with Aurora. I mean,
that's my challenge to you, because you wait till you
see her. She's gone. I said, well, what can I
wear for the gigs? And I'm like, mate, just it's glam.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Rocks, so go for it. And Aurora always feels.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
The bread definitely.

Speaker 5 (14:05):
So again, there's bangers, there's a ballads. We talk about
Bowie and if that's your jam, or even if you're
not a Bowie fan, come and learn a bit more
about Bowie and see what happens to the end.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Definitely now for all of our listeners out there, Loving
the Alien is on from art Center at the Art
Center Melbourne until Sunday night, so you can grab your
tickets from the art Center Melbourne box office or you
can also go to our Subculturre Entertainment dot com website
where there will be a link to grab those tickets
from
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