“I made the announcement [of Tin Star’s disbanding] on various forums this morning, and of course people were drawing parallels and saying I was going to run for office,” Mikelangelo says. As a one-time Canberra resident, Mikelangelo feels “a duty bound responsibility to clean up this mess” – though he clearly lacks Kevin Rudd’s hubris. “But I wish it was that simple – so I’m going to stay well away,” he laughs.
Mikelangelo’s own major announcement was born of a realisation that Tin Star – the project he conceived to explore his fascination with the surf and spaghetti western sounds – had reached its natural end. “It’s a difficult one,” Mikelangelo says. “I have a lot of projects on the go, and I have a voluminous amount of energy, and ideas, and putting things into action. And sometimes that energy can hit a wall – even though my appetite for making things is by no means dissipated. But I felt my ability to do it with the Tin Star had come to an end.”
Despite the disbanding of the ensemble, Mikelangelo retains a fondness for the work he’s done under its moniker. “We did great stuff, and I still love all the guys,” he says. “But I just didn’t feel I had a clear vision for where that group should go, and I’ve felt that for a while. Because of all the smoke and fire and noise from the various things that I do, it was easy to continue on. It was by no means cruising – I always put a lot into live shows, but in terms of a vision for another album, I couldn’t see it any longer. And because I have so much on, I thought ‘why am I still doing this?’,” Mikelangelo says. “And once you start asking that question, it becomes quite obvious.”
Mikelangelo does see himself still pursuing aspects of the spaghetti western aesthetic, including as part of one of his other projects, The Black Sea Gentlemen. “That’s always been in various incarnations of things that I’ve done, and there’s coffers full of songs that I’ve done, and I hope in years to come that I’ll be a well-known composer of movie soundtracks, and those songs can find a home,” he laughs. “I’ve got endless amounts of instrumentals, but ultimately I’m also a singer, and I think my skills are best used on stage as a frontman and a singer, rather than as part of an instrumental band. The Tin Star has always been a bit of both, and that’s why I liked it.”
This weekend will see Mikelangelo play his last show fronting Tin Star, on a bill that also features The Blackeyed Susans, organised as part of Yarra City Council’s Leaps & Bounds Festival. Mikelangelo has been a fan of The Blackeyed Susans for many years, and friends with the band for about 15 years. “Our first meeting was engineered through a photographer. I was doing a show at The Empress, and a photographer came up to me and said The Blackeyed Susans wanted to use someone in a photo for one of their Elvis shows, and said I had a pretty good quiff, so would I be interested,” Mikelangelo explains. “I knew a little bit about them, but not a lot. So we basically met on a photo shoot with me lying in a coffin pretending to be a dead Elvis, and we spent the afternoon together,” he laughs. “And then I realised what lovely chaps they were, and discovered their music.”
Mikelangelo has since gone onto work with The Blackeyed Susans on a number of occasions, including one year when he sang Blackeyed Susans songs in an Elvis guise. “I’m quite short-sighted, and I remember losing my contact lenses on stage, and thinking I couldn’t be Elvis with glasses,” Mikelangelo laughs. “So I had to do it quite blind that night – literally, not because of alcohol intake!”
Having been billed as Mikelangelo and the Tin Star versus The Blackeyed Susans, this weekend’s gig has taken on a different slant with Mikelangelo’s decision to wind up the Tin Star. “When I told Rob [Snarski] that I was disbanding the Tin Star, he said he couldn’t believe that I’d thrown in the towel before the bout has even started,” Mikelangelo says. “To which my answer was, ‘Don’t worry, I can take you down with me if I want to’,” he laughs.
BY PATRICK EMERY
