The Passion of a Creative Mind: Our Talk With Kat Robichaud

Ok, let’s get this fact out of the way. Kat Robichaud was on Season 5 of The Voice in 2013. Google it and you’ll see some her awesome performances. She’s way more than just “the girl who was on The Voice.” Life moves forward and so did she. A move to the West coast saw her doors of creativity burst open and Kat Robichaud’s Misfit Cabaret was born. It’s part original music that Kat writes for the show’s theme and “everything from burlesque to drag to circus to magic.” Last October Kat released a new song and video called “Vampire Love” and more recently one called “Psycho Hysterical.” We recently sat down to talk to her about her cabaret and new songs. We walked away feeling very inspired by listening to her speak passionately about the love for what she does.

How do you decide it’s time to release a new single like you did with “Vampire Love”?

Kat Robichaud: Oh, I don’t know (laughs).

Okay, on to my next question (laughs).

I am pretty sure I put “Vampire Love” out around Halloween. I don’t have a team; my day job is my Misfit Cabaret and that comes first and foremost. I have a digital distributor and obviously I’m working with Nighttime PR for radio publication. I’m pretty bad at all of that. I paid a ton of money for publicity in the past. I don’t have a manager or anything like that. My career is kind of wonky. I’m not out touring specifically for my music. I have a musical variety show that I write original music for and that’s pretty much when I perform. I’m not out with a band doing the regular rock star thing. I have a Patreon which pays for me to record my music. I give my Patreon my songs whenever I feel like it and I release them a month or two later. Anybody who wants to get in on my Patreon will also be responsible for funding which is a big thing.

You beat me to it. I was going to ask if your new songs were actually incorporated into the shows.

Yes, I wrote “Vampire Love” and “Dirty Little Secret” for our vampires themed show Bites.

How often do you do shows?

We do them quarterly in San Francisco. We were quarterly in Seattle and then the pandemic hit. The place that we were at went under and it took a while to get going again. We are now at the Triple Door which is a very big theater. We were always planning on going to the Triple Door and we knew we would get there. When our other venue closed it suddenly became now. It was really tough because it stayed super booked so it took a while and now we are doing three shows a year there. The next one is at the end of March which is our pop themed show.

Other than in your creative head, where did the Misfit Cabaret show come from? Was there a catalyst that helped spark its creation?

San Francisco culture man; I moved to San Francisco after I got off The Voice and I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t know anyone there other than a few friends. I just started putting myself out there. A friend of mine was performing at a burlesque show. I went to see her and then there was a drag show at the same theater a few weeks later but it was Bowie themed and I’m a huge Bowie fan. I went to that and there actually happened to be a tribute band playing that show. I approached them after the show. I told them I wanted to be in their band and I was by the end of the night. From that I started keeping my own band together and I very quickly realized that I couldn’t afford to pay a band. I was getting paid $100 to open for other acts coming into the city. So I downscaled it to just me and a pianist. We started playing a bunch of small cabarets and I ended up playing this illegal speakeasy, which isn’t there anymore so I can talk about it, called the Conservatory. My business partner was bartending there that night but she also produced her own shows. She came up to me after a show that I performed there and she said that she would love to do a variety show or something or produce a show with me.

As much as I love rock ‘n roll I also really love Broadway because my dad raised me on Broadway musicals plus I’m a pop culture fanatic. So I said why don’t we do shows where we’ll do cover music but I’m also going to do original music as well. We’ll do mash ups, we’ll have masks and I know a puppeteer. So we started off in that speakeasy which held about 100 people and we couldn’t advertise because it was illegal so it was by word-of-mouth. We sold it out and we moved it to the Great Star Theater in Chinatown which is a 400 seat theater. We were there for a couple years and did really well. Then we were there for couple years and did really well. We moved to another theater and were doing extremely well there and then the pandemic hit. We tried to go back after the pandemic but the numbers just were not there because people weren’t really going out like they were before. Now we are at the famous Great American music Hall which is one of San Francisco’s most beautiful and oldest music venues. It’s been there for over 100 years so we are about to put on our fourth show there in April.

So with every move, you have grown in size.

You learn a lot. We’ve been in Seattle for eight years. We started doing shows in Portland too. We were in LA at The Hayworth Theatre before the pandemic. We went back once and got our asses handed to us in a very terrible venue so we haven’t been back since. We went to Salem, Oregon and we are looking at going to the Edinburgh Film Festival next year. We filmed a full-length feature film during the pandemic. It’s all my original music but we haven’t released it yet because were trying to get into film festivals.

**Tickets for either Misfit Cabaret show can be purchased by clicking the links after the interview.**

Wait, a film? Is it just a performance piece or a concert?

Everyone was quarantining so event spaces and venues were willing to rent them super cheap or free. We hired one performer at a time and we all masked up. We got a healthy distance away, the performer took their mask off and we shot one at a time in these beautiful spaces. We did some of it outdoors which really helped with that and it’s all set to my music. It’s actually a love letter to San Francisco.

Wow, that sounds amazing! I remember following your journey on The Voice. Was there any interest in doing something like this while you were on the show?

A cabaret show?

Yes or anything remotely similar? I remember in your blind audition, not only did you kick ass, but you mentioned that you’re a Queen and David Bowie fan. Both of those artists were visual pioneers. So, was this explosion of creativity freed after the show?

I don’t know; I’m a hard worker but I’m also an artist. It’s really hard for me to figure out which direction. I think that a lot of stuff has just fallen into my lap or has been drawn towards me. You would think that I would have pursued music or acting earlier in life but I was really never encouraged that much. My mom paid for voice lessons, piano, guitar and dance lessons. My theater department in my high school went under when I was a freshman. It used to be that they would put on a big musical every year but that went away because God knows we can’t cut the budget for sports in North Carolina because sports is king. I did that too because I did varsity tennis two years in a row which was very important to my family. They wanted me to go to college and get a degree. In high school I really loved to sing but no one really encouraged me that much until college. I was really into like fine arts and I painted the lot. I did a lot of photography courses in college and I have a degree in graphic design.

It wasn’t until my senior year of college that I started singing in a band so I was a very late bloomer. I was in a cover band that I wrote two original albums for. We toured up and down the East Coast playing cafés and I did that way too long for seven years. I got too complacent and that was in my 20s. I had people in my life telling me that I wasn’t good enough to do anything else and I listened. So the second that the band broke up the opportunity to audition for The Voice fell into my lap. When I say fell into my lap that was from going up the East Coast playing a show at Arlene’s Grocery in New York City in front of some representatives from Sony. They knew me from that show. The Voice reaches out to record labels and asks do you have anybody that’s good to have on the show. They recommended me and I got an entry audition. That came from doing cover shows for all those years. Someone in Wilmington, North Carolina who used to work for someone in Sony said check this girl out. That’s how they came to the show in New York. It falls into your lap but you have to be there to catch it. You have to work really hard and really focus on what you love. If you’re not loving it, it’s so not worth it because it’s a long hard road to hell (laughs). The other night I had an anxiety attack because the show we’re promoting had low ticket sales and I was worrying. The next morning another show that we had not starting promoting yet had really good ticket sales which shocked me. So the ups and downs of this roller coaster are tough to deal with sometimes. I’m about to turn 42 and I don’t know what that is supposed to mean. I’m still playing my music and wearing next to nothing on the stage.

Yes but doesn’t that go back to loving what you’re doing? A lot of people are just punching the clock every day and miserable in their job but they do it because of the paycheck. Even though your anxiety can get up sometimes and it is a roller coaster, you are creating your own music and loving what you were doing. To me, I think it’s worth it in the long run.

A lot of it is you really have to be in the right place at the right time and you have to physically be in that place. I don’t know if we’re at a turning point with social media because it’s a slog. It’s extremely depressing trying to beat the algorithms and get to the fans. I’ve really had people say I love you and I love your music but they’re really not seeing your stuff. The physical shows are so important for your heart and for your soul. If I was just a solo artist online, I would quit today. It’s just horrible; I couldn’t do it. I have to physically be with people, I have to see that the work that I am doing is making a difference in people’s lives.

So you have a new song out called “Psycho Hysterical.” I love that your sound cannot be contained to a box and that’s one of the many things I love about you. Bowie and Queen were the same way. I think these new songs have an 80s vibe to them. I guess that’s part of the beauty of doing what you do because you can do whatever you feel like.

Yeah I don’t have a label telling me what to do. I write the songs for the shows that I write and the only parameters that I have are they have to fit with the theme of the evening. My two favorites are Bowie and Queen but I have so many influences. I was a kid in the 80s and 90s which are the most impressionable years. I’ve got my dad who never moved on from his youth and couldn’t let it go. He brought Motown and Broadway and classical music so that’s what he was listening to over there. So my mom’s listening to whatever crap is on the radio. The Top 40 stuff and easy listening stuff which I don’t even know if that’s a thing anymore (laughs). My brothers were listening to 80s hair metal and 90s grunge. Then I was influenced by what my friends were listening to and what we were dancing to in dance class. I was a latchkey kid who watched copious amounts of television and movies. It’s funny now because a lot of the music I get excited about I first heard it from going to see a drag show or burlesque show. I’m having this new music introduced to me in a really fun engaging visual form or I’m like I’m out and I am feeling the energy from the audience. I’m getting the energy and story from the stage and from their performer. I’ve never heard this song before or maybe I have and I haven’t liked it until now. I think that’s why music videos are still important because music is such a visual media. Even if you’re sitting there listening to it and closing your eyes, it’s conjuring up memories and nostalgia. A lot of my musical influences are going to be from 80s and 90s and it’s something that I blamed more and more as a musician. I think that our best and catchiest pop songs come from the 80s and they have really lasted over time. I think we’re coming back around to that.

I’m never been as excited about pop singers as I have been in the last couple years. I absolutely love the female empowerment of women who are dominating the charts because you have artists like Chappell Roan. My musical director shared ”Pink Pony Club” with me and he said this song really reminds me of you. I started listening to it and I started crying. It’s the lyrics of “and mama I can still hear your southern draw 1000 miles away” and I thought oh my God that’s me. Then you have Sabrina Carpenter who is really, really catchy. When I was in high school, we had Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears and that was a very toxic time for women in the industry. I feel like this new wave of queer pop stars have each other’s back and it’s super lovely. Katy Perry and Taylor Swift pointed it all out. They’re trying to get us to fight and were not doing the shit anymore. Gaga definitely paved the way for artists like Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan but then Madonna did that before. It’s just very exciting to me. That’s not to say that I don’t have a lot of respect for musicians like Adele who is not about spectacle at all. Just Lady Gaga’s latest video “Abracadabra” has just gone viral because it’s so much fun to watch. It is so visually stunning and it just adds so much to the song itself. It’s the same thing with Sia’s “Chandelier.” The first time I heard it I just thought oh it’s just a bullshit pop song. Then I saw the music video and I’m like oh wait this is art, this is some cool art shit. This is just really an exciting time for female pop and I think it’s fucking cool. I’m enjoying it very much and it’s a lot of fun to perform live.

As we begin to wrap this up, this is the point where I hand you the microphone to plug anything that you are working on or anything you want to.

We’ll be in Seattle on March 27-29 at the Triple and we’re doing our pop music themed show. It’s pinks and purples, it’s drag, it’s burlesque, it’s aerials and more! Our next show in San Francisco is April 18 and 19^th at the Great American Music Hall and it’s our cult film themed shows. That is one of my most favorite shows we’ve ever done and we haven’t done it in seven years. I think at this point I’ve written over 20 Mystic Cabarets. I write two original songs each time we do them and when we repeat t the shows I do more original songs. So eventually 10 years from now all of our original shows are going to be mostly original music. I think my favorite thing about Mystic Cabaret is, not only do I get to enjoy the dynamic and the camaraderie of playing in the live band on stage but, I also get to share the stage and create the visual aspects with some really incredible performance artists that I wouldn’t otherwise get to engage with. I just love drag queens and I’m queer myself. Being in the Bay has helped me realize that about myself and come out and I’m really proud of that. I’m sorry I could just wax what poetic forever about what I do.

You’re sorry? I can hear the passion in your voice so I love it. There’s absolutely no need to apologize here. As we wrap up all our talks, we like to do something called 3 For The Road. They are fun, maybe not so usually questions that you tend to get hit with. The first one is who was your first celebrity crush?

Probably David Bowie in Labyrinth; that was a lot of people’s sexual awakening.

If you could literally have anyone be your inner voice, who would you like it to be your inner voice?

Neoel Fielding is one of the creators of The Mighty Boosh. It’s kind of like a fucked up Flight of the Concordes but it’s British instead of New Zealand. He’s one of the creators of that. If you haven’t seen The Mighty Boosh, check it out. Neil is also the weird coffee presenter in The Great British Bake-Off. He has a very lovely voice very sweet voice and I’m obsessed with him. I love his artwork and he’s a glam rapper rocker as well.

If music and the cabaret show was over today and you had to go into professional wrestling, what would your wrestling name be?

My drag persona is Madame Fucker so that’s what it would probably be.

That would be awesome to see that on a show and hear the announcers call a match!

I’m very athletic; I could beat someone up.