Your live show combines poetry, funk, rock, hip hop and performance art. Is the broad scope a reflection of your desire for artistic freedom?

It’s a reflection of the fact we create songs based on what the words demand. The Freed Radicals are a versatile band, so we’re never locked into one genre, which means we can honour the words with driving rock’n’roll, sexy hip hop or expansive experimental soundscapes.

Do you feel you can express yourself completely freely in Australia in 2016?

Definitely not. Where are the platforms for a queer woman of colour to speak about her experiences or of how we are constantly at war with each other as a distraction from the fact the super rich are fucking us over? Who’ll allow me to talk about affordable housing, food, water or about revolution and overthrowing the upper echelons that continue to consume natural resources like the gluttonous, grotesque beings they are? I create my own platforms so that I and others like me can say what we want.

The show also comes with a disclaimer: “not for the faint-hearted”. Why do you saythat?

We push our audience to the brink – emotionally and politically. We talk of the heart, love, the pain of loss as well as revolution through direct action, civil disobedience. After every show, people come up to me crying, asking to hug me, telling me we have opened them up in some way. It’s no accident – I seek to break people wide open. Our audiences start off as strangers then end as a connected collective who shared an experience. A lot of people find that confronting because everyone walks around broken and fearful of being vulnerable.

With your band The Freed Radicals, you’ve released a new album, Birthing The Sky,Birthing The Sea. How did it come together?

The same way all our albums do – we go into the studio together, the band hear the words for the first time, they start creating on the spot and we record it. All our albums are recorded live and this one took 12 writing and recording hours. It’s always intense and beautiful. This one really sits on the edge of pleasure and pain – it talks about the magic of falling in love, the state of the world and the fear of mortality (I’ve been dealing with ovarian cancer for a few years).

You’ll be joined at The Red Rattler by Betty Grumble. Can you reveal what she’ll bedoing on the night?

Betty brings her own burning beauty and grotesque glamour to the stage. She will punish and please in equal amounts as only the world’s greatest sex clown and obscene beauty queen can.

Candy Royalle and The Freed Radicals’Birthing The Sky, Birthing The Seais out now independently; and they appearFriday May 13, withBetty Grumble, at The Red Rattler.

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