With her band of punks and misfits, Bernie Dieter's Little Death Club travels the world delighting audiences with their kinky, shocking, hilariously funny and moving repertoire of songs, fire-eating and aerial magic. Here for Perth’s Fringe Festival, I sat down with her to talk all about Berlin, cabaret, embracing the weird, ‘70s porn and the importance of connection, among other things.

Firstly, can you tell us about your background and how you became interested in cabaret?

As a child I was an attention seeker and I was always singing and writing songs. I moved to Berlin when I was 16 where I saw my first Spiegeltent show, and I lived above a drag club where I met so many incredible drag queens who were a huge inspiration. I found that people would come to these drag bars – people that you wouldn't necessarily expect, like the businessman whose wife left him or the stripper who is studying alchemy or the strange little poet or the young queer kid who is finding his own identity and comes to the bar because he feels accepted and safe. Some people were doing weird, kinky shit behind the bar; there were people who were accepting and open and offered anyone who was on their own a drink and a place to feel at home. We’re all so busy judging everyone that we forget that we're all little weirdos and we all have weird and wonderful personality traits, and that we have a lot more in common than we think. That's what I loved about cabaret: it unites us. I could write songs that were more like a conversation rather than a show. I want people to leave the show having made new friends. It’s about making a safe place where people felt okay to be themselves and to make human connection, but also to laugh and drink and have a great night out.

I felt like you really achieved that with the Little Death Club. Speaking of, how did Little Death come about?

It’s been a real progression. I travel around a lot and am lucky enough to meet a lot of beautiful talented artists on the road. After being a nomad, and being on the festival scene for some time performing in lots of different shows my long term collaborator and beautiful bearded man Tom (from Dead Man Label) and I wanted to create the ultimate cabaret club where all the beautiful punks, freaks and weirdos could come out and play. Where performers could do their funniest filthiest material. So we wrote new songs, and the show started as a late night show with a rotating line up and grew into a fully-fledged headline show with a set cast, a four piece live band and a truly original sound track. We are so proud of where it has come!

Why did you call it Little Death Club?

Well ‘la petite mort’, ‘the little death’ means orgasm in French so it's a little play on that. Also, it sounds punk and badass, which I enjoy. The show's a bit out there, so if people are put off by the name, then they're probably not the right people to come to the show anyway.

Bernie Dieter’s ‘Little Death club’, photographed by Alistair Veryard

Do you think sex is more palatable to a broader audience if it's coated in a generous helping of humour?

Definitely. I think comedy is the most powerful tool you have to be able to get people to open up. if you come at things in a direct way, it's often a bit too abrupt and can feel preachy. But if you get people to laugh you can get them to think too. The whole show is designed to be funny but also make a statement. The song ‘Dick Pics’, for example, is just showing how ridiculous the whole ‘Dick pic’ thing is. So people laugh, but hopefully people also go away and reflect on how weird it is to send someone an unsolicited dick pic. The same goes for our opera anthem ‘Lick my pussy!’ the faces in the crowd when I sing that song give me so much joy! I think as a woman, we are quite used to trying to find the ‘right’ way to approach things; a more sensitive way. It’s confronting for some people to see a woman talking about sex in a powerful way.

I had a woman come up to me after the show a few days ago and she said, ‘I saw your show last year and after that I divorced my husband. So I'm here celebrating my one year divorce. I just sat there and about halfway through the show I was like, I don't want to be in this relationship anymore.’ Other young women have come up to me after the show and said ‘my boyfriend has never licked my pussy.’ Or they tell me they’ve never had an orgasm. I say to them ‘go home, get in a room and find yourself,’ and they tell me they couldn’t do that. I spend hours of my life doing that! It’s important to talk about these things and address them in a way that empowers others to talk about them.

You write all your own material. What I loved about the arrangement is that you mix humour with a richness and deeper underlying message. Alongside the brilliant ‘Lick my Pussy’ and ‘Dick Pics’ sits incredibly moving ballads like ‘Cracks in the Mirror’. What inspires the content?

To be honest, that ballad, Cracks in the Mirror, is the first ballad I've ever really written because for a long time I thought I had to be funny all the time. Previously, I had only ever written dirty songs. There was a song about danger wanking and accidental anal, but there was never that other side. Then things started to change, I changed, when we started making this show. Tom and I sat down one night, had lots of wine and started writing. ‘Cracks in the mirror’ is a song about finding your own identity. We've seen so many of our friends struggle with things like gender and being accepted by their family. We reflected on what it’s like when you look at yourself in the mirror – that internal dialogue was something that we found really interesting. There was this big instrumental section in the middle that we knew needed a beautiful aerial piece that internalizes that struggle. It just felt like we were at a stage where we were ready to write something a bit more grown up and we weren’t afraid to put emotion in there and show vulnerability. As I've grown more confident in myself and my art I’ve realised it’s okay if people aren't laughing. It's also very healthy and beautiful to allow people to feel something deeper with you. It takes the whole thing to another level. And interestingly it’s one of my favourite bits of the show now.

Little Death Club, photographed by Emily Williams

Given the content of the songs and the different acts that you have, sexual pleasure and connection seem to be a theme that runs throughout. What does sexual pleasure mean to you?

I think those two things are so linked, and I think that that is a big problem that we are facing at the moment, is that people are getting more and more isolated and disconnected. Communication is really suffering, and I think that that's also the funny thing about sex. It can be so beautiful and powerful and amazing if you actually openly, honestly, express your needs and wants and desires. Communicating is sexy, for both partners. But I think that before you can have that, you need to have a basic connection to that person; you need that before you can have the great sex. I think it's also so important to love and take care of yourself so that then when you are with a partner, you can be in that relationship together. It's important to explore that side of yourself so that you can go, ‘Hey, actually I really like this.’ Because how are they going to know if you don't know? You can work it out together, that's another way to do it, but I think that self-exploration and love is really important and there's so much working against us now, I think, the way we’re addicted to social media is horrific. The amount of insecurity and anxiety that today's younger generation are living, it's awful. So you have to really try and navigate this new landscape and try and find healthy ways to empower ourselves.

You were in your early 20s when you started writing songs about sex – you obviously felt sexually aware and confident at a young age?

Yes, I was 22 when I began writing and I was confident. I also came from a family where my parents would talk a lot about sex. I knew way too much about my parents' sex life. I'd sit there with the wine and I would hear these stories. There was too much sharing!

My christening was videotaped over a 1970s German porn film. They asked my uncle to videotape the ceremony and he was videotaping me in the church as a baby being christened, and we’re in Germany and my whole family's there. You can hear him weirdly giggling in the background of the tape because as he was recording over it, he was watching this porn tape in the background. The whole family went back to my oma’s place and we were all eating cake and then the tape cuts to snow and my mom would get up and turn it off. I was suspicious so I snuck back downstairs one night, put the video on, and it was '70s prison porn. There were these two women, massive bushes, in a cell, and then these guards coming in with moustaches. And it was meta because it panned out of the cell and there was the warden. I watched the whole thing, a lot of times, and I got friends over and we would watch it. The warden was this massive lady with amazing, huge boobs and she was filming the cells and selling the film to this Arab prince who was getting the weirdest blowjobs I've ever seen, something like the oil drill. So, yes, my family was quite open about those things. I guess I never thought it was weird to talk about sex.

Little Death Club, photographed by Alistair Veryard

In your opinion, what are some of the biggest misconceptions around a woman’s sexual pleasure?

I think it's that a woman’s orgasm is something to be ashamed of, and that they’re not important. I think there's a lack of understanding around the amazing orgasms women can experience. I think many are still getting their education from porn sites where there’s 30 seconds of pounding and then everyone's happy, but that's just not how it works. A woman can take 40 minutes to become aroused but men can be ready to go straight away so how do you navigate that?

I also think there is still a sense of emotional connection for a woman. So you kind of go, "Well, that was really nice and I'm happy with that." You had that emotional moment so you don't... well, a lot of people don't think, "Hey, actually I want a bit more out of this." Also, for men, they don't really know that that's possible or that it should be a priority or something that they should be focusing on. So it's just a real orgasm gap.

We also put a lot of pressure on having an orgasm. Even if you don't necessarily orgasm the first time or whatever, there needs to be some thought to go like, "Okay, but there's pleasure there," or experiment with things and enjoy yourself. If you put too much pressure on there being an orgasm then you get women faking it just to try and not make their partner feel bad.

I think it all comes back to that lack of communication. People are so scared to talk about it, it's so oppressive.

Censorship is a big issue for many artists, particularly on social media platforms. Is this such an issue in live performance or does your art form give you wider boundaries to explore?

It's a lot harder for someone to censor a live show. There's certainly a line between being commercially viable and performance art and we try and walk that line a little bit because I want to live from my art so there is a kind of boundary in that way. But I feel we have pushed the boundaries quite far, and the show is so successful that I feel people are open to what we’re doing.

It’s interesting to watch the movement of the variety genre crossing into mainstream television; obviously you can’t sing songs like ‘Lick My Pussy’ on Australia's Got Talent. I've been approached a lot of times by scouts from the ‘You’ve Got Talent’ shows from Ukraine, France, UK but it's not what I would want to do because I'm not that commercial and the censorship on that kind of platform is obviously massive. Once you start trying to broaden your platform, in terms of other media, it does become harder.

Bernie Dieter photographed by Alistair Veryard

What’s the best thing about being surrounded by punks, freaks and weirdos?

It’s the conversations, the stories that people tell, the nights out. I've always found humans so fascinating. It's always what I wanted when I was old, just to have loads of those stories to tell. It's also amazing being able to learn from people who go into performing and I think often have such vastly different life experiences. Some people are actually really introverted but they go on stage and they're a powerhouse, and then some people are the opposite. It's the characters that you meet and you travel around with. That goes as much for the people in the show as for the people that come to the show. It's just like a beautiful carny family.

It’s impossible to tell the future but what impact would you like to have?

I don't really know what the future holds. I'd like to make more work. I'd like to keep writing songs and maybe a solo show with the band is also on the cards.

In terms of impact, I get so much joy out of people coming up to me after the show and saying things like that woman who divorced her husband. Another woman came up to me and said, ‘That song, Cracks in the Mirror, my son has just come out as gay and my husband's really struggling to deal with it, and that was just such a beautiful, powerful thing,’ and then we hugged.

Then there’s some of the younger girls who are like, "You're like my spirit animal. I want to be like you." And I say "You can, just do it." Making people feel good about themselves just for a night – hopefully for a bit longer – is amazing.

I don't know what form it will take in the future but for now, hopefully we’ll just keep doing it and encouraging more people to see the show. I think that we're at a point in time where we really need more things like this in the world because what is happening right now is a scary shit-storm. People need to remember to laugh and they need to connect, to celebrate difference and learn from and love each other- because at the end of the day we are far stronger together than we are apart.

An interview with Bernie Dieter