Adriano Cappelletta, writer and actor

Adriano Cappelletta is an actor, writer, and creator across film, television, cabaret, and music.

After researching Australia's reponse to AIDS in 2016 after years of volunteering with HIV/AIDS organisations, Adriano wrote the play Never Let Me Go, which was adapted into the 2022 television series In Our Blood by the ABC.

We discuss music by Arthur Russell, the Pet Shop Boys, and Madonna. You can follow about Adriano on Instagram here, and learn more about All Out here.

Tracks of Our Queers is produced, presented and edited by Andy Gott.

You can listen to our Spotify playlist, Selections from Tracks of Our Queers, and find Aural Fixation in your favourite podcast provider.

Transcript

Adriano Cappelletta

Andy: [00:00:00] Hello Adriano. Welcome to Tracks of our Queers.

Adriano: Thanks for having me.

Andy: I'd love to know where did you grow up?

Adriano: I grew up in Perth in Bayswater, so in the suburbs of Perth. I grew up in a very Italian family and yeah, I guess growing up in Perth I was pretty isolated from everything else. You know, it's, it's the most isolated city in the world, I guess.

We have that. We're really lucky to be able to be called that. And you really do feel isolated, and I was talking to my friend the other day about what sort of differentiates Perth artists, and I think it's almost that like, I knew that I had to get out of there.

I knew that there was a world beyond Perth. And so I did move to Sydney and, and then move to Europe, as quick as I could. But also it, it means that, you know, it was easier to make things there. We were very creative. I was working in theater as a young person all the time, and I was making things.

It wasn't very difficult so you were sort of creating in a bubble. There was no pressure. So actually being a creative person in a kind of isolated place was [00:01:00] easier for me anyway, I found that.

Andy: Why do you think it was like that versus if you had maybe grown up in Sydney?

Adriano: I was so desperate. For pop culture. I was obsessed with pop culture. I was so desperate for any kind of cult, you know, references or anything. I, I was just obsessed with, you know, bands and other things and, because there was nothing else really. So it was almost like that was my laser focus of music and films and, and all of that was really something.

I mean, I'm sure kids in Sydney are gonna say, you know, that's the way I grew up too. But I, I don't know, I had my own little world. I would just come home and I would put the two speakers of the stereo right to my ears and I would just lay down and listen to records, listen to CDs, you know, after school all the time.

Andy: And how is your hearing now? Can I ask

Adriano: it's what was that? 

Yeah.

It was almost like being in Perth. The fact that it is kind of boring is, is that you find ways to [00:02:00] escape it and music and culture was a way for me to escape that world.

And so I really delved into it and I, I put myself in that imaginative world in a way. But maybe lots of people do that.

Andy: When you had those two speakers, either side of your head what were you listening to? 

Adriano: It's gonna make me sound so old, but my parents had Sergeant Peppers, the Beatles, and I remember I didn't know anything about the Beatles. And I remember thinking that album was like, so, It just blew my mind.

 I really loved Crowded House as well at the time. The album Together Alone was a really, I loved that album. I loved Madonna. 

Alana Morrisette, it was the time of grunge for me as well. So lots of guitar bands. I really gravitated towards grunge and I loved it and Bjork and all of that, but at the same time, I craved something that was not as grunge. It seemed to [00:03:00] be sort of, you know, naval gazing, but also it wasn't as

Andy: as

Adriano: Light, you know what I mean? It just wasn't as fun.

And sometimes I think I crave music that was more fun as well at the same time. 

Andy: Do you remember the first time that you felt different from the other kids?

Adriano: Oh yeah. I felt like an alien at school. I remember that. They weren't into the same music that I was. I love madon. I loved Ab Fab as well. Absolutely fabulous as well. And I kind of knew that, I couldn't talk to anyone about it. I loved the Golden Girls. And no boy my aged watched any of these things. 

And I remember that I couldn't talk to anyone about all, all of these things. And I remember walking down the hall one day and just thinking my head was gonna explode and just going, I cannot wait to leave. I feel like an alien here. 

And I knew that I was playing a role. 

Andy: So when did you find your tribe? When did you find like-minded people?

Adriano: I don't think it was until I went to drama school, [00:04:00] until I moved to Sydney. And and that's the year I came out. You know, everything changed. I was living on my own, you know, with other people. And I remember coming out, I came out to this guy who's a dear friend of mine and he said, you've gotta come out to one person every week now.

Like from now on. That was his thing. And I remember coming out to the other people in my year, and I would tell them that I was gay. And a lot of the time they said, oh yeah, well, so, so am I.

Yeah. And then it became about them and I was like, this is my. And it was an opportunity for them to come out, or, you know, guys were like, yeah, I'm really into guys too. Sometimes other girls were like, I, I'm out. And I'm not as special as I thought I was. And people came out to me.

And so in the end, yeah, I just totally found my tribe. And they were all the geeks at school who were movie obsessed, who were music obsessed TV obsessed. So it was like we were all together in this group.

And it was this feeling of, for the first time of able to feel like you could be yourself. And [00:05:00] it was almost like I had to learn to be a friend again, because like all the friends I had before, they weren't meeting the real me.

 So it was like I had friends for the first time because all those other friends were a version of me that I was pretending. But this was the first time I met people as me at at 21, you know? And that was a sort of surreal experience, but also really freeing.

Andy: That was such a beautiful summary of one of the quintessential universal queer experiences that so many of us go through. And I never tire of hearing it. Whenever I hear someone's version of that tale, I, I, I could never get bored of it because it's about self-actualization.

It's about people being the person that they are meant to be. After years of presenting different versions of themselves and then finally putting the pieces all together and people accepting them for it. It's just beautiful. So from Sydney, you went to Paris. 

Adriano: I got a scholarship to study with a master clown Philippe Gaulier. I thought [00:06:00] that I was only gonna go for five weeks, and then I got his scholarship to go for two years. He is famous for insulting people and humiliating them.

But he does it in such a funny way that it could never be serious. And he really just got me, like, he just really understood who I was. And you would get on stage and you'd have to make people laugh and he would gong you if you, if you were bad. And I remember in my diary I was like three weeks in and I was like, I get gonged up to 20 seconds. This is what am I doing here? I'm spending all this money, like I should just go home.

And then one time I remember I just talked back at him and just told him how crap this school is, and I could see that it was a game and that his whole persona was a game. And he's trying to create personal freedom for you and trying to make you feel freer to just be, and my freedom was just to kind of be mean, you know, like as in it's sort of like naughty to be mean and to sort of say mean things to people in authority and all of that.

And he taught me how to have pleasure in my life. We come back [00:07:00] from the weekend and he'd say who smoked Hashish? Who kissed someone? And he was always trying to get us to. Enjoy our lives in Paris there and just have fun because he's sort of like, we we're trying to sell pleasure to an audience.

We're not trying to sell our pain. You know, he's saying your pain is for your psychologist, but your pleasure is for an audience and, and what an audience comes to is to see someone live the pleasure of life. So it reminds them of the pleasure of life. We're supposed to inspire them for that. And it was just so transformational for me.

 It wasn't the Stanislavsky method acting that I had learned at my drama school. It was about joy and it was about your own personal freedom. And for the first time, I felt like I could be gay and be an actor as well. Like I could be myself, you know?

And so it just changed my life and it still is the, the best time I've ever had in my life. It was so full of joy. I was so happy all the time. It was [00:08:00] just a blissful time for me.

Andy: And if you can cast your mind back to that incredible time for you, what were you listening to in Paris? 

Adriano: I listened to so much Sufjan Stevens on the Metro. 

I would, I would listen to that and Jeff Buckley, even though I listened to Jeff Buckley in the nineties. But I, I, it was sort of re-listening to that. And, and lots of French music, like you know, of course, and it's so cliche, but I listened to so much Edith Piaf when I there. Cause I lived in Belleville.

And so I had to, it was kind of, I had to, and it was, it was this thing of like, I, I made it seem like I'd been listening to Edith Piaf all my life 

Andy: were you smoking as 

Adriano: I was smoking the first week I was there. I was smoking outside this cafe in Belleville. I'd never smoked in my life and there I was and.

Andy: You're like,

Adriano: Hopefully thin, [00:09:00] these thin cigarettes. This Swedish girl, Josephine gave me a cigarette and I was like, of course I'm gonna smoke this cigarette outside this cafe in Belleville where Edith Piaf stood and busked. It was just terribly cliched and romantic and I loved every second of it.

Andy: Your mini-series in our Blood has just aired on Australian tv. Tell me how the idea for the story came about. 

Adriano: I guess I was always.

Andy: I was,

Adriano: Fascinated is an interesting word, but, by AIDS in in general. You know, I grew up in the shadow of AIDS and there's a generation of men in my generation who weren't old enough to actually live through, you know, you know, to be sexually active during that time.

But I grew up with a concept that AIDS was happening and that people who were gay like me were dying. 

So sex for me and intimacy, I didn't have this burgeoning kind of feeling of romance and this sexual awakening. I was quite scared about it. 

So it was always something that I didn't really understand.[00:10:00]

And then when I moved to Sydney, I was going out clubbing and, dance culture. I was introduced to drugs and everything, you know, and everything that we do when we're that age. And then after a while I was like, I feel like I need to, there must be a community out here for me.

It can't just be meeting people at clubs. So I went to ACON and I said, can I volunteer? What can I do? And they said, oh, you could volunteer for C S N Community Service Network. And they trained me up and essentially I just went to men's houses and did their shopping, did their groceries cleaned their house.

And we would always chat, you know, after. And I had several clients over those years and it really demystified AIDS for me because they told me about their lives and they didn't live tragic lives. They had full lives and you know, one man was in the army, I remember, and the first thing he showed me was a tarantula that he had in a, that he had sort of like in a case.

And he said, oh, when I went [00:11:00] to Iraq, you know, it was in my bed. And so I, I took it with me. And so I've taken it back and, and I remember one of my clients passed and I went to his funeral and I stood at the back and all the people that were there were not like a funeral that I was used to with like family members or a religious funeral.

It was incredible, it was community and I guess it was what I was searching for in a weird way. It was almost like I could see that he had built a community around him as well, you know from a real queer family. And I was like, that's what I want too.

 So I wanted to tell that story in a way. I wanted to learn more about what it was like to go through the AIDS crisis. And, and I'd heard the American story so many times, and I'd heard it be fictionalized as well, through like normal heart and through Angels in America, which were really inspirational, text for me.

 Then I just read a book about what happened in Australia. And [00:12:00] I was expecting it to be like the American version, that the government was going to be inactive and that people were going to moralize gay men and, and drug users. And I thought that that's how it was going to be.

But what I started to realize was it was exactly the opposite, you know? And that we had had a gay man, Who was the senior advisor to the new health minister at the time, who had links to Darlinghurst and understood that all of these things, gay sex, prostitution, and drug use was happening.

And it was not going to stop. And there we couldn't just say, let's just put an end to it, and then that'll be the end of the virus. So he was able to influence him as well and to build links between those communities and the Australian government, the medical associations and the gay community and the drug, using community and the sex workers were able to come together and those grassroots communities were given the power to educate each other.

And it's the first time it's ever happened, you know, and they were given government money [00:13:00] to do this. And we turned the tide and and gay men did change their behavior, you know, even though some doctors didn't believe that it was possible that they would change their behavior.

And we didn't have a second wave of aids within the straight community because it was, it was stopped within the gay community and within the drug using community. So in a sense, I sort of feel like the wider community owes a great debt to those communities because we kept it within our communities.

 So in, in a sense, I, I just wanted to tell this inspirational story and I, and it made me realize that I'm from a lineage of really amazing people who are so courageous, who are so loving, and I wanted to communicate the love that I feel when I'm in a queer environment. I wanted to communicate that this community is full of love, and you underestimate them, you know?

So, it's a really personal story for me, [00:14:00] and sorry. I get emotional when I, when I talk about it. Yeah, because it's, it is just so inspiring for me. And,

Andy: for me and

Adriano: sorry, and you, you grow up thinking that you are lesser, as a queer person. And what this story is, it finally made me personally realize

Andy: realize

Adriano: that no, you, you've gotta stop thinking like that because your community is, and you are stronger than you think.

 So I never thought that I would get the opportunity to realize it in this form, in a TV series. So it's been huge. I originally wrote it as a play and I did it as a play.

And I always wanted people to sing in the show. And I always wanted eighties music to be part of it, because I thought to myself, how am I gonna tell this story? How am I going to communicate? And I, you know, being in your twenties and having half of your friends die, how are you going to communicate that?

I haven't been through that. How [00:15:00] will the emotion transcend through? And I thought music is the only way to transcend that and to communicate that emotion, because when we all listen to music, we have such a strong emotional connection to it. So I thought music was the way in. And it, and it proved, it proved to be the way to tell this story, you know?

And when I did the play and we had everybody singing acapella, like, hold me now, the Thompson Twins or Small Town boy, there was something so powerful in that, . And the music, it takes people right back to that moment because no matter where you are, you have that emotional connection to it.

And so that was the key to telling the.

Andy: I just got shivers then in the story you just told and imagining I didn't see your play on stage but imagining those acapella singers yeah. Sends shivers down the spine. But thank you so much for explaining that.

You've talked about why music was such a fundamental part of telling that story, but the songs alone, we need to discuss. The songs just can't get enough by Depeche Mode. Shout [00:16:00] plays a very pivotal role by Tears For Fears small Town boy, you've mentioned Only You by Yazoo, and of course Heaven is a Place On Earth by Belinda Carlisle.

How did you pick these songs?

Adriano: Yeah, I guess I just I was just listening to so much eighties music for years as I was researching this. And I love Brosky beat. It's just seminal, you know, that and that song and that film clip of small town boy, I'd never seen anything like that before, you know?

I love Yazoo and Alison Moyer, you know, they're just such incredible songs. I just wanted something primarily.

There were always things that I thought that queer people would be into. That was always the first thing. I wanted them to be queer [00:17:00] anthems and I wanted them to be music that queer people would connect. That was, that was always primarily what it was. And then it was about, well, how is this going to serve the story as well?

And what's the right moment, you know, will this serve the story where we need it to be? But ultimately, they were always just songs that I loved and songs that I thought that queer people would love too.

Andy: And I have to ask, how did you get the rights to all these 

Adriano: Yeah, it was, it was challenging. And, and of course there were lots of other songs that I wanted, that we couldn't get, you know, Abba Olivia Newton John and o other things. So, but Ultimately we, we got lucky with a lot of them. And in the show we, we don't use the whole song, you know, it gets expensive.

So, we did what we could with the budget that we had. But yeah, we were really lucky in that we were able to get these songs and that people agreed for us to use them. I I, what happened behind the scenes, whether the, the artists actually agreed because, you know, we, we had to write in what it was for and, and, and the scene and all of that.[00:18:00]

And I dunno whether they responded to the material and that, you know, and that's why they said yes. 

Andy: I've seen the first two episodes and it's this queer story told by queer people a history lesson, a powerful history lesson that we do need to know, and that.

Queer people have to seek out, you know, you've spoken about lineage and I've got the feeling that through your selections, this concept of lineage and ancestry will come up time and time again. But we have to go and learn about our ancestors and the generations before us. And this is such a powerful history lesson still filled with joy.

How, how's the response been?

Adriano: I think people who were there at the time having them say, this is so authentic, or having them Just tell me a story about. What, what their experience was like. That says enough for me that they actually want to share a story about their experience, tells me that it's resonated with them.

Other people have said, oh, I remember I was Liam's age that the young guy with the, the wings, like that was me. You [00:19:00] know, that's my story. You know, that means so much to me that that people feel. That we're communicating something and it's almost like they're there again.

And that they feel like it's time to remember. Because for a lot of people it was a really traumatic time and actually they didn't have a period of grieving, you know, we have Anzac Day where people can grieve or whatever, but we don't have really a moment where people can mark.

It was a war that people went through. They talk about it often as going, I would go off to war and my neighbor had no idea what was going on in my life, but it was like a war that I lived for 10 or so years. And so I feel like to give them this time to look back and that they, they open up about a story is so, it, it, it really means so much to me and also younger queers who are saying, I didn't know about this.

And that it's actually ins an inspiring story for them. Yes, there's tragedy in it, but it's also like a story Where groups that aren't supposed to get along came together and didn't vilify the gay [00:20:00] community in that way. Yes, the media might have vilified them, but they had the backing of the government.

How incredible to go in Australia. Yes, there was a time, and you know, I now with Albanese, you know, I was there at Mardi Gras when he walked and he said, you know, this is modern Australia. And you know, I cried when he said that, but to have a government that's backing you and is saying your lives are important and we wanna save your lives, when in America they were saying, it's God's will and we're just letting people die. So, I think it's great for younger people to, to see that history and to say this is what's possible. And you know, we, we are a progressive nation and we do get things right sometimes and, and there's faith in that as well.

Andy: I could talk to you about this project and your life for hours but we're here to talk about the music and you have selected a track an album and an artist that we're gonna talk about today. First up, I'd love to know the [00:21:00] track that you selected and why.

Adriano: So it was Arthur Russell and Wild Combination. As I was researching AIDS and, and researching this time, I was always looking for artists who were working during that time. And I've always been fascinated by the New York scene in the late seventies, the club culture in that time.

You know, I'm sort of obsessed with that time and, I wanted to sort of start thinking about, well, what was that time before AIDS hit? Because in the first episode, you know, we have this incredible moment where they're in the club and I wanted to communicate this idea of like, yeah, everything was great before AIDS hit and there was a sexual revolution in that time and people were going out to clubs and and music was such a big part of it and people were connecting and, and coming out, you know.

 We just had, the first Mardi Gras in 78, and so I was researching all of that time. [00:22:00] And Arthur Russell was someone who was making music at the time in New York as a, like he was making disco as well, like under dinosaur L and, and loose joints. And then he was making work as a cellist and as a, as a songwriter and sometimes he moved into country as well, and. There's a documentary about him called Wild Combination and found out that he did pass away from AIDS related illness. And so it's almost like I sort of had this stronger connection to him in a way.

And that his music wasn't this, this music was, was found his lover kept the tapes and then released the tapes later on. And so he represents for [00:23:00] me, the mentors and the artists that I didn't get to meet. And what was possible, like what would be possible if all these artists and all these creative men and women who didn't die of aids, where could we be right now?

 What could I be inspired?

Andy: be

Adriano: And so, I just saw possibility in him and, and that music is sort of captured in time. I love that he was so diverse in his art, you know, moving from that club scene into like, he was the director of the kitchen, this sort of avant garde scene as well where you know, Philip Glass and all of that sort of were there.

So that minimalist style as well is what I'm really attracted to as well. He was just kind of like this artist, a lot like Australian artists like David Macaron and Peter Tulley and all of those creative artists.

But for me, he was a representative of what was lost. When we were filming I was in a scene in a town hall where the journalist character, in a town hall scene and she's educating them about AIDS and in the breaks, while we were setting up scenes, [00:24:00] I, I don't know why or how, but he mentioned Arthur Russell Music, the guy sitting next to me, he was an extra, and I was like, you know, Arthur Russell.

And we started talking about it and we started talking about wild combination, the song and the documentary as well. And it was just this guy that I never expected would know about Arthur Russell, but it was almost. Not saying that he was there, but that, that thing of, like, I had kept him in my heart and mind throughout the process of creating the show.

And then when we were actually filming it, it was like I had this reminder of him

with this person sitting next to me. 

 And I love the song because I feel like it's talking about queer love. He's talking about hanging out with his boyfriend, like, that's us, you know, and, and it was just this beautiful representation of queer love for me.

Andy: He's so many people, like you said, Arthur Russell is, he [00:25:00] represents different things on different levels. So you've got this super eclectic artist who you mentioned this cellist who can also traverse worlds of country and disco. But I think now reflecting on that conversation you had with that extra sat next to you, when people say to me you know, Arthur Russell or whatever, or he comes up in conversations or he's on a playlist that maybe someone shared, he represents almost that, if they're into him, I know that they know they've got a pretty good idea about his story. He's not this wildly known artist but he's also not a nobody either. So when people do know him, generally, they are people I think who are interested enough, or they know a bit of history, so they know that he was one of those fallen queers, for want of a better phrase, those people who produced incredible art and were so creative and put so much out into the world and were taken away by this horrendous [00:26:00] virus.

 So when I see him on a playlist from someone, I'm like, oh, they know, they know that story too. They get it. And it's yet another connection that we share as, as queer people. The way that you phrased. That fascination you share about that generation of people who they wouldn't even be that much older than us, this entire swath of, people around the world who.

Like you mentioned, what could they have produced? What would be in the world if they'd be here? What would be their take on the world? How different would the world be? It's a source of deep fascination for me. And it was great to hear that it's similar for you and not surprising at all considering the work that you've put out there.

 I am not ashamed to admit that I discovered Arthur Russell through a cover that Robin did of a song 

Adriano: That's right. He's on an album, red Hot and Arthur Russell.

Andy: Absolutely. So she covered Tell You Today, which is one of his more disco bangers.

[00:27:00] I'm a huge Robin fan, so when she put that out, that led me down the Arthur Russell Rabbit Hole. And again, you've gotta find your queeroes wherever you can. And I love the, the connective tissue, which brings all these stories together.

Adriano: You found it through a queero as well, so there you go.

Andy: So the album that you picked, I'd love to know what and why.

Adriano: I picked Very by the pet shop boys which came out in about 93 and I think I was about 13, 14 when it came out 

 and. I was sort of thinking, what, no, it's gotta be about how it's affected me as a queer person. [00:28:00] And, you know, at the time, grunge was, really huge and I was reflecting on it being a teenage boy. It's almost like, you know, in the nineties as well. And I don't know if it's changed this feeling of like, you can't really stand out. You know, you kind of have to fly under the radar a little bit. And especially being gay, I didn't wanna draw attention to myself too much.

But I essentially am. More of a light person and colorful. I wanted to wear really bright clothes. But I kind of censored myself and when I was younger, I wore really crazy, vibrant clothes, fluro clothes. But as I got into my teens, I sort of policed myself a bit.

So when the pet shop boys came out and the released Very and they were in witches hats and they had like fluro and stripes and they had those helmets, those sort of like yellow helmets, and they were like in spacesuits. It was kind of like this reawakening for me of like, yeah, that's, that's [00:29:00] who I really am.

 And that was so magnetic for me. And it was like, that's what I want to be. I wanna live my life with lightness and fun. And it was just this, the pressure of trying to. Be straight. So the pressure of trying to behave in the way that I needed to at that time was so great.

And so they were literally a brighter world. And then when I started listening to the music, you know, can you forgive her? And I wouldn't normally do this kind of thing. I knew instantly, oh, they're talking about being gay. Like, you know when, when, when you dance to disco and you don't like rock, I was like, oh, okay.

I get a lot of this. And I love that. They were funny. I loved that it was light and it was tongue in cheek and all of that, and I didn't really get that from grunge. And, that was so attractive to me and then go west. [00:30:00] My God, I would sit, you know, in my lounge room and the video clip would come on and it was like, I was in a club and I was gay for three minutes, you know, I could be out and be myself when I was dancing to that.

 It was a lifeline for me, really. Even though I loved the music as well, you know it was so fun. It was also oh when you get older, there is another life. For you that that's the life that you're gonna be involved in. So the song Liberation on the album as

well is so beautiful. I, it's a real anthem for me. That's the thing. It's like you grow up and you are always listening to songs that are about girl Meets Boy, boy Meets Girl kind of thing. And you know, that's fine, but you don't realize it, that when you are not exposed to kind of queer content or things that speak about you

Andy: about you

Adriano: as a queer person, that, that [00:31:00] reflect who you are and you don't realize that you are holding stuff back and you're holding stuff in.

And then when you do see it and when it does express you in a really affirming way, you actually just take a breath and you just have this time to go, oh God, life can be joyful. You know, and that's what this album is for me. And even when I listen to it today, 

I just feel so much joy because they are so unashamedly gay and they're so happy and they're so cool as well.

I mean, I think the Pet Shop boys are cool. They own how stylish they are, how wonderfully tongue in cheek they are. They still make incredible music. 

And I look up to them so much as artists and, and how they're able to maintain longevity in their career and create a sense of fun. They make pop music fun and that's why they're so magnetic for.

Andy: I love that the album that spoke to you so clearly is that 13 year old and made you, tap into this sense of there's gayness in the future, it's [00:32:00] out.

There was also this album for them was, well, people say that it was their coming out album because it was the first album that Neil Tennant started to talk about being openly gay. And I mean, you'd have to be Helen Keller to not realize something was up beforehand. Shout out to Helen Keller. But the album that preceded this has a special place in my heart.

So behavior, which came out three years earlier, a little bit more muted. That's my favorite Pet Shop Boys album. And that features a song called Being Boring, which again ties back to this concept of lineage and you know, missing generations of people. So that's, that song will always have a special place in my heart.

 But I love that the album that you picked was a reaction to behavior. So whereas that was more muted, very is so bold and loud and orange. I just think of the orange of the album color. And on re-listening to this because you selected it, I also really enjoyed the Theatre, [00:33:00] very drama camp over the top.

Adriano: One in a million also. I'm just like, why is one in a million not a gay anthem?

 And there's also the ab fab song on it as well. We just like, it's the greatest. I never tired of it. It's so fun. It always makes me laugh. Just the kind of, the actual just melody of [00:34:00] it. It's just, I think it's one of the greatest dance songs and I'm not afraid to say it, but it's incredible. 

Andy: I just think the audacity of that track to exist. There's some live recording. I've also heard of them performing on whatever tour it was to support this album. They performed the ab fab track to what sounds like an enormous crowd in somewhere like Brazil.

 And the crowd goes ballistic, they lose it. And I'm like, what world is this where this huge Brazilian audience is losing it over an absolutely fabulous dance track.

Adriano: It's like a fluro burst dream. It was, it was just like a queer dream for me. I, yeah, I love it.

Andy: Okay. Tell me why you picked this artist.

Adriano: I picked Madonna. It seems like such a cliche God, but I just went with it. I went, you know what? I'm not gonna [00:35:00] pretend that it's anyone else. It is Madonna. She has just been so influential in my life, as I was a kid, I would collect photos of her, I would listen to her music. I knew from an early age that young boys who like Madonna were different cause nobody else did.

 As an artist, I just think she's so incredible in that o obviously she's the great reinventor. And she's been able to have this longevity but I just, I love her music as well. I just think her music is really complex and I think she takes great risks.

And when I think of albums at the time that really resonated with me, like erotica and bedtime stories. It was almost like she told me it was okay to be sexy. It was okay to embrace what you are feeling. You don't have to suppress the feelings that you are having of being queer, being gay, you know, just go with it?

And because I saw her be so free and, and push [00:36:00] all these boundaries, it was so exciting for me. And it opened something up in me in that I became less afraid. She, she made me less afraid by the way that she was so bold with everything that she did. 

And I just love the music. I love erotica, it's the, like, it is sort of like house, but also kind of hip hoppy in a way, and sort of like, and bedtime stories is this sort of r and b. And then, you know, Ray of light moving into kind of drum and bass and all of that. I just was so attracted to all of them, and and then all of the albums that she's made since she's just, for me as an artist, she's the sort of artist that I wanna be, to be able to take risks like that.

 I remember her being vilified so much in the media for when the sex book came out and, and all of that. And I just didn't understand it. It was always this double standard that [00:37:00] when she wanted to explore her sexuality and celebrate female's sexuality, she was vilified for it.

And it was almost like I could see that, ah, okay, that's what people do to gay people as well. They don't want me to celebrate and to experience my sexuality in a fun, safe, exciting way. They don't want me to fantasize about that. Whereas Madonna did that and she put that front and center, and she made it okay for me to do that.

So yeah, I owe such a debt to her, you know, and, and it's so many, she resonates with so many queer people. 

Andy: I think the world owes a debt to Madonna and the world has a complicated relationship with Madonna. It always has, and it never won't. But in recent years, while there's obviously been a lot of negative coverage of parts of her life and artistry, I do think that a positive is a lot of people are being made more aware maybe through the internet of the work that she did when very few other people were doing it around bringing light to aids, bringing light to safe sex.

And [00:38:00] she was one of those people that you mentioned. You know, you're fascinated by New York in the seventies and eighties, and of course Arthur Russell. And she was surrounded by incredible creatives. Who just dropped dead. And so she, she was at those funerals herself. I love that you mentioned erotica. That's a special album for me as well. And I also particularly love the tour that supported the album, the Girly Show, which came to Australia, as I'm sure you know performs in this life, which is the song that she wrote for her best friends. And it was this song that she dedicated to them. And I've got this vision in my head of her standing on stage, and telling the audience that this song is for a, a friend that, that she lost to AIDS and so powerful in that time. It's something that we take for granted that not every pop star or big name was talking about. I think history will smile [00:39:00] kindly on the contributions she gave to the queer community.

Adriano: Yeah, she didn't have to do that, and she was probably the most famous woman in the world at the time when all of that happened. And I, I remember that she had a, like a pamphlet in the, like a prayer album in America, and it talked about safe sex I in it as well.

And, and I remember in bed with Madonna or, you know, truth or Dare and watching that and there's that scene where two guys kiss in it. And that was the first time I'd actually seen two Men Kiss. Nobody was talking about it and, and there was, there was so much shame around being gay and, and to have Madonna talk about it, like it just kind of like validated it for you and made it seem like, oh, it's gonna be okay. Like, you know, and yeah, she didn't have to do that, but she did.

And, Keith Harring, who I'm so inspired by as well and his work totally inspired me in the making of, in Our Blood. It was a good friend of hers and designed a lot of things for her and yeah, you know, like she's just, [00:40:00] I mean, hey Icon, maybe we use it too much, but she really is an icon.

Andy: You've mentioned a few albums by Madonna that you love. I'm gonna make you give me a top three Madonna tracks that you would give to, let's say a young, fresh, queer who is exploring their queer lineage.

And you say you need to start with these three Madonna songs. What are they?

Adriano: Okay. Like a prayer. Hmm. Deeper and deeper

Andy: Hot

Adriano: I love rain. That's one of my, but that's maybe just the me I, that's one of my

favorite songs. I love 

rain. 

Andy: Wonderful. Now what's next for you? Can you discuss what you're working on next?

Adriano: As in writing projects, I'm working with the woman that I wrote the show with. We're working on some new projects together that are going to put queer stories at the front. Yeah, we're really keen to [00:41:00] actually tell queer stories. And hopefully we'll get the chance to do that again. We had such an incredible working relationship. She's a queer woman who taught me so much about scriptwriting. I literally had like a PhD masters in screenwriting with her. She was an incredible mentor for me, and in our blood has actually inspired her to really wanna tell queer stories. So one of the greatest things was the relationship that I have with her that came out of this. So I'm excited to move forward in that, in that direction.

Andy: And where can international viewers watch in our blood 

Adriano: so Fremantle Media is the distributor for it. I'm not sure at this stage what streamers it'll get released on, but it will have a European release. At some stage when I, I, I couldn't say. But I'm, I'm hoping that it will be maybe mid-year,

Andy: Finally, is there a queer charity or initiative that you'd like to give a shout out to?

Adriano: Yeah. All Out is a charity that I've always been connected to and [00:42:00] have given to and, and, and it actually opened my eyes up to all the injustices that are going on all around the world, and people come to them and they start their own petitions, or campaigns.

But it's about they, they're looking at you know, anti L G B T laws or situations all, all around the world. And they're trying to bring everybody's attention to it so that we can, so maybe we are more progressive in Australia, but that whole thing of like, you know, we're Nova gonna be free until everyone is free and that we need to start thinking, it made me start thinking about what's like for queer people all over the world and to broaden my lens of that and All Out does an incredible job of bringing that to light.

So I'm so grateful for them and I think the work they do is amazing.

Andy: Well, Adriano, you are queer and thank you very much for your tracks.

Adriano: Thanks, Andy. It was so fun to talk queer with You and it was like having the best friend in high school that I always wished I had. So this is good.[00:43:00]

Andy: Oh, you're making me blush.