Many people will recognise you from your band Leonardo’s Bride. What is your fondest memory of the early years?
Leonardo’s Bride was together for almost ten years. It was a hugely formative experience and I loved the growth and teamwork. We were a big team who worked very hard and had lots of amazing opportunities. Life was never dull! There was a particular concert at the time of the Olympics in Sydney where we played in the domain to around 80,000 people and I wore these huge multi-coloured feathered back pieces that I’d bought from Les Girls, the infamous showgirl/boy club in Kings Cross. I remember we were at the top of our game and I was just so very elated and comfortable and thought I might take flight.

‘Even When I’m Sleeping’ won APRA Song of the Year, and was also voted in APRA’s Top 20 Australian Songs of All Time, which is an amazing feat! Was that a crazy time for you?
The APRA award came at a time when we were working very hard. It all seemed to make perfect sense at the time. But when you’re moving that fast, there’s no time to really look behind you to see what you just passed. The Top 20 songs of all time award didn’t come until possibly after the band had broken up? We are all very proud of the work we put out during our time together. The high points in any life are often never what or where you think they’re going to be, are they?

You are the youngest of five children – what was your house like when you were growing up?
Our house was busy and a bit wild. My mother was a working woman bringing up five children on her own. Our house was the hub of the neighbourhood so there were always people everywhere, riding skateboards, playing guitars, getting up to no good. I had a lot to take in.

We hear that you have a musical family – when did you first recognise your musical talents?
We were a musical family in that all of us played the guitar, but it seemed like a time when everyone played the guitar so it wasn’t unusual. My older brothers had a great vinyl collection and I used to love sitting on the floor poring over the album artwork. Apparently I have sung or hummed since I could walk. I didn’t realise that I had something powerful to express until just before Leonardo’s Bride recorded its first album, Angel Blood.

Can you remember the first time you performed in front of anybody?
They wheeled me out at school to perform a bit, so I started young, but I remember the first time Dean Manning and I (we founded Leonardo’s Bride) performed together was in 1989 at the Crossroads Theatre in Sydney at a night called Brackets and Jam. There was a sign side of stage saying, ‘Please let the organisers know if you are too stoned to play and they can reschedule you’.

What would you consider to be your career highlight so far?
I consider the highlight of my career to be the fact that I have been fortunate enough to record and perform music with amazingly talented people for the last 20 years!

You are the ‘Baby’ part of Baby et Lulu, a seductive musical partnership with Lara Goodridge. How did the two of you come together?
We met many years ago but became good friends when her record label Craving Records released my solo album Rise Up. About five years ago we found ourselves in Paris at the same time and realised that we both loved to speak French and light-heartedly vowed to one day sing a French song together. A few months later, she and her partner were having a party and he suggested that we prepare a song. So we found an accordionist and stood on milk crates and sang together in harmony in French and we were so ecstatic that we simply had to do more of it. Our joyous little side project, for our own pure folly and love, then started taking on greater proportions!

As well as a selection of classic and contemporary songs, you and Lara have recorded a number of your own compositions written in French. What drew you to pen songs in the French language?
Lara and I are both songwriters anyway, so it was a natural progression to extend our range and write in this language that we love so much. It was quite liberating actually.

Do you have a personal favourite track from the new record, Album Deux?
My favourite changes often, but it is currently ‘Tout est Fait’, which is an original song written by our guitarist Julian Curwin and Lara. The title translates as ‘what’s done is done’.

When did cabaret grab hold of you and what do you love about it?
You know, it has only dawned on me recently that our show is somehow cabaret! I love this show because Lara and I get to dress up in a very feminine and coquettish way. The show is very entertaining and high energy, and we dance and tell jokes and swoon and are passionate chanteuses supported by our extraordinary band. For me, this is a revelation because my solo shows are usually a more intense and personal journey for the audience, whereas at this show, the audiences seem to experience it en masse and people come in big groups to experience it with their friends.

You’ll be performing in Brisbane at the Queensland Cabaret Festival in June, what’s on your list of things to do, see or consume while you’re here?
Unfortunately, comme d’habitude, we are only in town for the day, so we will do our best to take in as much as we can while we are there. Suggestions and invitations are welcome!

What can the audience expect from the Baby et Lulu show?
Audiences can expect to be swept up in the joie de vivre of our love of what we do and also the amazing musicianship of our world-class band. It is incredible! Our show is joyous but also passionate and moving and sassy and ridiculous. We sometimes tell stories in faux French accents and Lara and I have the same ridiculous sense of humour so it is sometimes quite hilarious. Audiences usually never want to go home afterwards.

If you could start a supergroup with any five artists, dead or alive, who would you choose?
Elvis Presley, Stevie Wonder, Ella Fitzgerald, Leonard Cohen and Björk.

What’s your idea of complete happiness?
A nice cheese platter and a glass of bourgogne sitting in a Parisian terrace with somebody fabulous.

What inspires you?
That’s the mysterious bit. It’s never prescriptive, which is why one continues with curiosity on the curlicue path …