Reinvention in the arts industry is nothing uncommon. People do it all the time, and for a myriad of reasons; the changing tastes of the audience, the suffocation of a pigeonholed image, boredom. But for Helpmann Award winner iOTA, there is little there to reinvent. From his earliest days, the wildly talented performer has enjoyed a protean career, shifting through interests, characters and genres with the relish of a Mascareri. Yet such fluidity can be quite a gamble, and there is a fine line between celebration and commiseration. Or, as his own press material tells us, “iOTA has enjoyed relative failure since the release of Hip Bone Connection…”
“Who writes these things?!” he laughs. It is indeed an amusing observation, since iOTA’s successes far outshine those occasions things did not go entirely to plan. “In my Hip Bone Connection days, it was just a dream to be making a record at all and to be shown interest, to sell records. But I quickly realised that I wasn’t going to be able to make art through music. When I released my second album it was more arty, and it just didn’t get played. I had a little taste of fame, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. I didn’t like the feeling of being watched. So I tried to get away from it, I suppose, but on the same hand I still tried to scrape some sort of success back with my third and fourth albums, and that didn’t really happen. I felt like I’d had my go, and then this offer came along to do theatre just as I was seriously considering packing up and going home. But theatre took off, and I felt like I finally found somewhere where I belonged.”
While the stage may well be the saviour that has kept his career in motion, it certainly hasn’t trapped iOTA in one place. He appeared on the big screen in that little-known indie gem, The Great Gatsby, and can currently be seen shredding a fire-spouting guitar in Mad Max: Fury Road. On top of this, he has a new album due soon and is days away from the opening of B-Girl, a vaudevillian rock musical developed by the same team behind the exceptional Smoke & Mirrors.
“Smoke & Mirrors was created for the Spiegeltent, but we didn’t want to do another tent show,” he says. “At least not yet. We didn’t want to do Smoke & Mirrors Part Two, which would have been very easy. I’d rather we did something more challenging and see where that took us. I’ve always wanted to do something more theatrical, and [director/co-writer] Craig Ilott wanted to create a concert, so we were both heading in each other’s direction anyway, and met in the middle somewhere. It worked on Smoke & Mirrors, and it definitely works again for B-Girl. It feels really exciting, and sounds unique.”
After the beautiful heartbreak of Smoke & Mirrors, the promise of B-Girl is an exciting one. The story of a woman whose reality is so despairing she fashions a glam-rock alter ego, Clifford North (iOTA), in order to escape it, there are several parallels with the performer’s own history. Growing up in an environment where being gay was an invitation to ridicule and violence, iOTA learnt to hide his true self behind a mask and create an easier fiction.
“Performing is a way of escaping real life, a way of exploring your confidence. Whenever I walk onstage, I know exactly what I’m going to do for an hour and a half, which is something I don’t feel in my normal life. I have great anxiety about a lot of things, but I walk onstage and I know what’s going to happen and who I’m going to be. I think my career has developed the way that it has through luck and I guess through talent. At 46, I think I’ve finally found where I feel comfortable. I can do theatre, make music, I’ve done a bit of film, I paint. I think I’ve always been looking for it, but haven’t ever known what I’ve been looking for. When I walk onstage now, I’m surrounded by lights; there might be smoke, music. I’ve kind of created a rock character that comes alive through theatre, but it’s not actually at all my real life. I think there’s a lot of freedom in that.”
While he no longer needs to hide his true self, the shape-shifter in iOTA remains strong. From the lovelost rabbit of Smoke & Mirrors, to Frank N. Furter and Clifford North, iOTA is a vivid, archetypical chameleon, and a happier man for it.
“Free. That’s how I see myself. It’s what I’ve always wanted. I’ve never wanted to be pigeonholed; I find it so limiting. Back in the Hip Bone days I found myself in a kind of blues and roots pigeonhole, which I really didn’t like. It didn’t feel true. So I think today I’m a lucky artist. Self-motivated. That’s what I’ve always strived for. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t want to be here.”
He laughs.
“It would just be too boring.”
B-Girl runs Wednesday June 3 – Sunday June 21 at the Playhouse, Sydney Opera House.
