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[0:13] Robert Bannon: Welcome to the round table, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon, and we're here on Broadway World or the Broadway Podcast Network. And I love cabaret. And I sing cabaret. And I've watched the movie Cabaret. And I um that's all I got for you. And I and I love people who do cabaret, and I love people who do cabaret at Joe's Pub because they're like the coolest people that do cabaret. Like that's where all the cool kids come and do cabaret. And our next guest has a new album coming out and a show up, Joe's Pub. And all of the people that love cabaret love our next guest. He is kind of like someone called him like the David Bowie of cabaret. And now, if that wasn't so cool, and that made me have the hatred and hateration for our next guest.

Then he comes on, he tells me that he's 41 and I'm 41. And then he has like 106 less wrinkles. I said we could be brothers until I realized he has much less wrinkles than me and better hair. You know what? KIM DAVID SMITH, you're not coming on the show. I'm bumping you. You're off the show. Get off my show. No, KIM DAVID SMITH is here. Hair and no wrinkles and all. Welcome to the show.

[1:17] KIM DAVID SMITH: Hello. Hi, viewers. And systems, perhaps. No wrinkles. None. Moisturizing. Look, moisturizing. I started off because uh uh I don't I don't know. My my mom just had sort of like very 80s like uh skin tips, and so I started off with uh Vaseline and just Vaseline all over my face at nighttime. I don't know if that helped me. I did it for years. As a teenager, what are teenagers got to worry about? The sun. The sun. Do not be in the sun, but you know, aside from that. Well, I'm I'm gonna do the rest of the interview with my just like this. I'm gonna pull like Norma Desmond, my eyes back, and and I'm just gonna, we're the same age. Can you tell? And if you're listening to us on a podcast, I'm sorry, but you need to watch the visual on YouTube or on Spotify. So Kim, you have a show and an album, and it's so fascinating. Tell me.

[2:11] KIM DAVID SMITH: Alright, so Mostly Marlene. Both a show and an album at this point. Mostly Marlene. It's my uh people, and there she is. There she is. Okay, I first foremost. Um I am so so thrilled with how this album art uh turned out. Um it's uh it was uh uh I I submitted I've looked I've I've been shopping around for ages and just thinking like what the hell am I gonna do with it? I really liked the album artwork for my previous Live at Joe's Pub record. This one also uh was recorded at Joe's Pub last uh uh uh last year in February. Um so it's fresh, it's new, it's fresh, it's still it's still fun and interesting and cool. Everybody should listen to it. Um but I was like, I want to do something sort of like feels like sisterly adapted, felt very like Helsh uh uh Freudian, uh Hell Helshur Helshfieldian, Helsfieldian, um, and just sort of like fabulous, a bit theatrical and very silly.

Um I I wound up just doing a self-portrait. I got sort of like around sort of the the first of this year, and I was like, oh, what am I gonna do? And I just threw together a self-portrait, sent it to my designer friend. He's like, this is actually it. He tidied it up a lot. He says a little, I say a lot. But I'm like at a KIM DAVID SMITH show, it's top hat, it's eyelashes, and it's brazen red lips. And so that's what we did.

[3:31] KIM DAVID SMITH: I I like this look. I'm not gonna steal it, but I really love it. It is so good. I really am obsessed with eyelashes, can't like kid. Like Kim David Smith. When I see a person in the street and they have good eyelashes, I can't help but be like, oh my god, your eyelashes are gorgeous, but I've never had eyelashes put on. Well, and as a as a uh um a person of um uh Shetland E Shetlandian and uh UK descent, um, I feel like eyelashes and eyebrows and they're not always guaranteed. Um I'm lucky to have what I've got, but for the shows, I put a little extra on. Well, your your career's fan, so everybody, the album, but while we're talking while while we're here before I start being silly and getting in the deep and dirty over here with KIM DAVID SMITH, you know, I want people to know that the album is available to be streamed on March 21st. Make sure you link and download and save and all the things you do wherever music is heard.

And we can find more information about it at KimDavidSmith.com where all the information is available. And also you can follow KIM DAVID SMITH over at KIM DAVID SMITH on Instagram. He made it easy. It's KimDavidSmith.com and at KimDavidSmith, and the music is under KIM DAVID SMITH, and go live your best life.

[4:41] Robert Bannon: What is the when people say to you that you are, like I was saying before, the David Bowie of cabaret, or you're the Mr. the male Marlene Dietrich, and all this these ideas, these things that people say about you. Is this person we see on stage you? Is it a version of you? Is it is it what is your cabaret persona?

[5:03] KIM DAVID SMITH: Uh I think my my my cabaret persona is uh it's it's look, it's it's a Frankenstein's monster of all of the above, things yet to be excavated. Um it's very much uh an amalgam of everything that I've seen and loved and and felt a part of as an audience member in the past. It's you know, I'm I'm I'm as cobbled together as the next gay. Um but it's like it's like for me, it's it's Marlena Manelli Minogue. Those are my M's, right? And you know, uh Madonna is you know, she's just but the the those three are very much at the table. Um and uh I don't know. It's look, it's I've been doing this for about 20 years. More than 20 years, um still, but like good. 20 years. Um and uh and it's just it's evolved over time, it's it's settled over time, it's I've I've every single day I discover a little bit more about myself, which is terrifying.

Um but every you know, every day you discover a little, and that goes for like your yourself on stage as well. And sure, there are moments like uh on I I tend to begin in a little bit more of an arch space because it's cute and it's fun, and I then I let myself breathe through the show, and by the end I'm gasping and breathless. Usually it's a very uh disco-ified uh Kylie, all the lovers moment at the end of the show with lots of twirling and spinning and dancing, and at that point it's just it's it's very unabashedly kimishly kim. Um but there's there's there's a journey, as there should be through anybody's show.

[6:42] Robert Bannon: I I love that so much. I I love the press release says like above all else, it is gay, it is queer, it is it is for us, it is for our people. It is gonna make you smile and laugh and dance and twirl, and you give the full roller coaster of emotions on the album and in the show.

[6:59] KIM DAVID SMITH: I try, I do try, you know, everything from uh camp archness to uh faggy sentimentalism and all the nothing in between.

[7:10] Robert Bannon: That sounds like my kind of night. I'm obsessed. I I need to uh people go get a ticket. Well, while we're talking about tickets, if you want to see the live show, um, you can go see the the the album release and the debut and the whole shebang March 21st, right there at Joe's Pub, get yourself a drink and a cheese board and hang out with all the cool people over at the public and Joe's Pub, where it's the spot.

[7:30] KIM DAVID SMITH: It's the spot. Please, please do get a ticket and do that. We're doing so we're we're celebrating the record. Um, and it's like it's the Mostly Marlene set, but we've uh taken a bunch of stuff out. I hope hopefully not your favorite, um, but you can listen to them anytime you want, stream it. Um, and we're putting in a whole bunch of other stuff, like uh so Kylie is my Jesus. Um and I was stunned to learn that in the uh the tour, which so excited, so so excited, but I did take a peek at the set list. She's not doing uh someone for me, which is from Tension 2, which Tension 2 is it's so fabulous. It's scripture. Um, but she's not doing that song. And I thought I thought it was absolutely the most obviously coolest song on the anyway. So we've decided to do it. She's not touring with it, we're doing it. We've done this exquisite jazz uh take on that song. It's like super jazzy, very like Julie London throws a party. It's it's it's really gonna be so fabulous.

[8:28] Robert Bannon: Um weights, because why not? Okay. Yes. Okay, can I say something and you you won't like me anymore? See, I'm from the United States and we have a lot of problems here, like in general, period. Full stop. That's all I have to say. That's and you are not. And Kylie Minogue, I think sometimes in the United States, while she had she's very popular. Well, the world, she's like an iconic superstar goddess. Why do we not love on the Kylie Minogue here like everyone else does?

[8:58] KIM DAVID SMITH: I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. Pam David, tell me. And so and so people, it's it's it is it has nothing to do with love. And it in fact has everything to do with hate. You cannot write bad press about Kylie Minogue. America thrives on bad press. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, so-and-so's tit fell out. This and this happened. But you know, it just she's just so fat. She's she's chiefly fabulous, she's chiefly kind. Kindness. Have you ever heard? I don't uh just she's just this glimmering, shimmering visitation. She she she is, as Rufus Wainwright puts it, she is the gay shorthand for joy. Um, and you just you can't write a bad word about her. And I think that is a lot of it. It's like there's no like scandal, she's not like crying and clutching a Pepsi in a parking lot, you know, she's not flashing her bit, skipping out of a car.

[10:03] Robert Bannon: Yeah, some, I mean, yeah, let's Google that. Someone did. I think someone did, wouldn't she? I um someone was in a Pepsi crying with a with in a parking lot with the Pepsi crying, and it's not Kylie Minogue, but I love her music. And if you're gay and you're at the club, people love her, her music is iconic. Beyond the, you know, the the songs they can't get you out of my head and all the stuff that was hit, big hits in the United States, like her music goes deep. So a tour here is a big deal. But if you can't go see her tour here, you could see KIM DAVID SMITH, and you could see him, do Kylie Minogue and Minel. Now, see, I am a Minelli gay. Like, that is my era.

[10:41] KIM DAVID SMITH: Yeah, you cannot go wrong. Well, I but you will rarely go wrong. Like, it's just, I mean, Liza, Liza is on stage, and I believe is a human. I almost met her once. And I say almost. It was it was my decision. We were both, we were both getting an award the same night, right? Which is uh in 2009, we were getting an award together. And I was uh sound checking um before her.

[11:07] KIM DAVID SMITH: And so I hung around, got to see what you and she was just in, and this isn't to besmirch, um, because I, you know, she's got a lot going on, but she was in a little bit of a state. You know, she had it, she she got there, she got onto the stage, like took her out of her pocket her bag of cigarettes, popped that on the piano, and she's got the director of her Broadway show running at the time, uh, Liz at the palace. Um, there sort of like, you know, helping her like sort of like get get uh get herself around this like one song and presentation, and then she was bringing Charles Osnivore onto the stage, which you know she adores him, uh, and he was fabulous too. But I could just tell, I just had this moment of maturity that I regret, I regret my maturity.

I this moment of this is not the time. She's not being hi, Georgia. She's not, that's not the moment. Do you know what I mean? That's not where she is, she's not sitting in that moment, and I should not intrude. And I didn't, and I I guess I guess I'm happy with myself for being a big boy, but like I'm also like, well, there goes Sally Bowls, Kim. But what an no, but you got an you got an award the same night that she got an award, which is in of itself, which is a bistro award, which in and of itself is uh an honor and should be is wonderful and incredible. But then you get to honor her on this record and in the show doing songs like doing cabaret on it, things like that are you you get to be and do your your Kylie? Like you have put on like you have the gay anthem of the year, you have the you have the Kylie moments, you have cabaret on here, and then you have a litany of Marlene songs.

[12:41] KIM DAVID SMITH: Yes, yes, yes, yes. The album is a celebration of Marlena and Marlena intersecting with my favorite of her composers, Friedrich Hollaender, uh, who wrote a bunch of and I because I uh if if I'm known for for anything, uh it's the Weimar Republic uh uh rap, all the Marlena stuff, and then all my Kylie dabbling. But like he he wrote all of all kinds of things for the for the clubs uh in the 20s, uh in Berlin when everything was just really culturally ablaze in a marvelous way. And then it wasn't as of you know 1933. Um, welcome to 2025. Um, again. Um, anyway, and so he he wrote with and for her a bunch and then moved over to the US um once the Nazis uh took over, and so she continued to work with him through her life um and a professional career.

And so it's just like tons of their music together, boys in the back room, uh uh the man's in the navy, which is just about sort of sledding uh uh uh navy folks sledding it up, and it's just that's it's sounds of fun. And then, but that but throughout all of that, there are there are Kylie inflections for those with ears to hear, there are Kylie inflections, there are um the Manelliisms that I I do pepper throughout in a way that I I struggle with uh the word authenticity. I don't quite know what it sort of it means something else, something different to like everybody. I think it's not really a thing. Um, but in a way that feels uh uh uh organic, natural, you know. I'm not sort of just throwing in a just for you know I'm in. I'm in to hear the album, I'm into to see for people to see the show.

[14:25] KIM DAVID SMITH: Uh, when did you come here? When did you come here from Australia? Well, I came uh I came over, uh, I started visiting in uh 2005, and then I moved here in 07. And so I've my entire adult life has been here. Um, and you know, and people say, you know, it's like, oh, things are getting crazy. But Australia's okay, why don't you move back to Australia? I'm just like, are you kidding me? The lifetime that I have invested in in New York, in in P Town, and and you know, uh, and and forget it putting aside professionally, it's just like uh obviously my husband would come with me if we went to Australia, but like, you know, my friendships, it's just like it's been almost 20 years here. Yeah, this is you, you're you're here, you're an American, for better or for worse, like all of us.

You suck it up. So uh, but this but art is a way to protest, and art is a way to get our word out, and especially queer art and and queer art and and and art where you get to say, This is my husband, I'm gonna sing Lyza Manelli, and I'm gonna stand up here in uh a hat and I'm gonna put on lipstick and I'm gonna sing my damn song. That is a protest in of itself, and we need it more than ever. More than ever. And it is not, and this is not to exclude our allies, because my shows, my album, uh, it's all about bringing people together who share values, who share a sense of the camp and of the fabulous. Uh very few, very few strike eyes. Lots of lesbians. A lot of lesbians are the best people. The very best.

I love lesbians. And and for so especially in P Town, like my I lesbians are my are my peeps. I'm sitting here, and this is not to make it about me. Or and my wrinkles. Please. But you know, I do a big old pride show at 54 below every year that's all diva music. And I just sing songs I shouldn't sing. And I'm like, why isn't KIM DAVID SMITH at my show singing Kylie Minogue? Like why why why are why don't I see your show? Why are you not here? Well, I need you to be there on June 20th this year because you are right my cup of tea. Like I get you're crazy. Let's do it. Oh, let's just do it. Let's padum while the padaming is good. Let's do it.

[16:37] KIM DAVID SMITH: But but I need people to buy a ticket first and see you do it and and stream the album. And and because yes, we need all of this to go. People need to be a part of it. So you have you have you have Charles Busch on the record, you have an incredible cast of people working with you to put the tell me a little bit about the production of this record. Who's on it? Who helped you produce this? What's the deal? Look, you know when people say, Well, it's a love letter to to to queer nightlife. It's a love letter for that. Well, it is. It just is, all right. It just is, and we mean it. Um Joe Joey, uh Joey Arias and I have performed together, been friends for just like you say. We have our own special love language, which is just sending each other dick pics of random dicks that we find online.

That's our last we rarely actually use words. Um, and in among the dick pics, I was like, hey honey, do you want to do a duet for my record? And he's like, of course. So, you know, we had Joey in the studio, um, Charles, Charles Busch and I met. Uh, actually, he we met, he was drawing me at uh an erotic drawing group that occurred Wednesdays, used to be on Wednesdays, um in Soho. And he was, and we just we uh, you know, you just strike up a conversation and you know, obviously, you know, knew who we were, and uh, and we just just what an absolute angel. What a darling. Um, he's one of my chief inspirations for um for queer nonsense. And so it was a real delight getting here. So, and so okay, so it's a uh uh rewind slightly.

17 tracks are live on the record, and then there's four tracks of bonus studio duets. And so we've got Joey, um Charles, uh Charles came in and did Illusions, uh, one of uh Marlena's most covered songs. But we've done this gorgeous sweet duet. It's very sort of um, it's very sort of, you know, like two actresses just as sort of uh uh whiling away uh intermission uh and just sort of uh talking about life. And he actually wrote some original dialogue for the song, which is which I'm uh which I am classifying as a lost uh two-line Charles Busch play. So, and that's so that's on the on the song as well. It's an entire play, it's just two lines. Um and then we've got my mother does a duet with me as well, which is the cutest, sweetest thing.

She was over. We did when did we record that? Uh 2023. Uh she was over for my 40th birthday. And um, and I was just like, let's jump in, let's get in the studio. We booked it, we did it, and she was amazing. She even uh learned uh the German. So we did, we did uh it's just it's another Friedrich Hollaender song, which is in the public domain. I just found out, so I don't have to pay for it.

[19:10] Robert Bannon: Miss Linda Randall is your mom.

[19:17] KIM DAVID SMITH: She's my mother. I can't wait to listen. My mom doesn't, she plays the accordion. Hey, uh I wish my mom sang because I would I would, for lack of a better word, I was gonna say whore her out, but that's not right. I would I would make her sing. That's so cute, Kim Davidson. You should do a duet with your mother, like sing you sing, she plays accordion. That's the sweetest thing ever. That's so divine. Think about it. That might be even too bizarre and gay for me. But I like it. But there's a way to do it. There's a way. Um kids, listen, you kids out there listening. You can do a duet with your mother. There's a way. Figure it out, get it done. Because like honestly, what a beautiful souvenir.

And she sounds so lovely on the record. I wrote, I rewrote some of the um the English translation, especially for our uh relationship, which is as special as as anybody else who's with their mother. We all, you know, those of us who have a really good mom, uh, it's it's that's the meat and potatoes of life. You know what I mean?

[20:22] Robert Bannon: Yeah, well, this album, listen, everybody. You he said there there's 21 tracks in total. You're getting your money's worth, and you're gonna get your money's worth when you go see the show. So I'm really excited. It's out March 21st. And I and so stream the music on March 21st, wherever it's her Minogue, Manelli, Marlena. There's a little Madonna, erotica moment, a little there's there's a lot for you there. So gays and as Robbie Roselle says, queers and queer adjacent people.

[20:47] KIM DAVID SMITH: Yes, we love Robbie. He directs my show. That's it. You're coming to my show. What? Where have I been? So you're so where we're gonna go to KIM DAVID SMITH.com. And where have you, where have I been? Why haven't I been to your show? Why are we in the same room and we don't know it? Where's the way it'd be the same person? Weird.

[21:08] Robert Bannon: I'm Demi Moore, and you are the person that crawled out of my back in that substance movie.

[21:13] KIM DAVID SMITH: Yeah.

[21:14] Robert Bannon: And I'm whatever her name is who won the Oscar. I don't really follow it, but I just had to follow you.

[21:19] KIM DAVID SMITH: I'm following KIM DAVID SMITH on Instagram so we stay up to date.

[21:23] Robert Bannon: So everybody, homework assignment. We're gonna March 21st, we're gonna listen to the album. We're gonna go to KIM DAVID SMITH. We're gonna buy tickets for Joe's pub, and we're gonna celebrate this entire big gay extravaganza moment. The show's on the 21st, the album's on the 21st, everything's happening on the 21st. You're a joy. I had so much fun with you. Thank you, honey. This was such a pleasure.

[21:43] KIM DAVID SMITH: This was exactly the gay ambrosia I needed on this day.

[21:47] Robert Bannon: Exactly.

[21:48] KIM DAVID SMITH: I like ambrosia weirdly.

[21:50] Robert Bannon: Yeah.

[21:52] KIM DAVID SMITH: It's good.

[21:53] Robert Bannon: Congratulations. I can't wait to listen to the.