Tom Waits - Research

Tom Waits (1945 - Present) is a singer, songwriter, composer and actor. He is know for his distinctive voice which has been described as "soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smoke house for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car" by critic Daniel Durchholz. His music is influenced by pre-rock styles e.g. blues, jazz, vaudeville etc. It has an atmospheric quality and paints portraits of grotesque often seedy characters and gives them a narrative. He has quite a strong fan base and has accumulated a cult following. Alcoholism was a huge problem he faced and a lot of his work seems to be fuelled by this.

In our experimental piece we will be playing different characters within a bar that is actually a meta-physical representation of Tom Waits' brain. In his songs he usually portraits grotesque seedy characters. I could possibly use one of these songs to inform a character I will be creating during this project. For example in his song "Step Right Up" a character of a fast talking salesman who literally can sell anything. This could be interesting to play around with as there's lot's of possibilities within Tom Wait's songs in relation to character creation.

Tom Wait's has also been involved in many films, not just musically but acting too. This shows that he doesn't just want to limit his artistry to one single medium but wishes to create in many different ways. I feel we could use this idea within our own piece. We shouldn't just stick to the single medium when creating this piece. We should definitely have elements of song, lighting, video maybe even taste and smells. I feel like Tom Waits his an artist before he's a musician and we should treat him like one and paint our piece with loads of varying colours. This would also help to indicate the mania of his brain and how nothing is predictable.

Just another interesting side note here's a list of some other creative people who struggled with mental heath issues:

• Carrie Fisher - Bipolar 
• F. Scott Fitzgerald - Depression 
• Ernest Hemingway - Bipolar/Anxiety 
• Elton John - Depression 
• Laurence Olivier - Depression 
• Ben Stiller - Bipolar 
• Barbara Streisand - Social-phobia