Entertainment
9 April, 2023
Music with a little bit of murder
A ROCK musical exploring the life of a young man finding his way in the world through music and murder will be put on in a Tablelands Music Lovers first towards the end of the year.
Blood on the Frets is a completely original musical written by Music Lovers member Bruce Thompson.
The idea for the performance first began after Bruce wrote a song and per-formed it one night at Tablelands Music Lovers in 2021.
Many of the people attending started calling it the serial killer song, even though it had nothing to do with a serial killer at all.
Music Lover president Colin Trigwell told Bruce his song sounded like it be-longed in a rock opera and from that moment, the idea of writing a rock opera was born.
“I started writing and it just started flowing, I kept going for around a year until it was finished,” Bruce said.
Tablelands Music Lovers will be auspicing the play and providing any support they can.
The play is a comedy with roughly 31 songs strung throughout it including, rock, country, swing, heavy metal, pop and everything in between and all the songs are Bruce’s own work.
Daniel is the main char-acter of the musical who due to having a rough childhood, has gained a fondness for murder and has become a teenage serial killer.
The play’s journey follows Daniel in his escapades with each song signalling an important emotional moment or turning point.
Despite the dark undertones of the musical Bruce said it has been written in a special way to make light of the situation as after all, it is a comedy.
“The play is set in 1982 and the reason being after a bit of research I found out that during that year America had 70 per cent of the world’s serial killers,” Bruce said.
“That was the biggest year in history, there were around 4000 known active serial killers in America in 1982 – which is ridiculous when you think about it.
“I took the ridiculousness of it and made a ridiculous play about serial killers.”
Bruce recently held au-ditions for the singers last weekend with rehearsals slated to begin in the coming weeks.
As it is a musical, the songs are a key aspect of the play and Bruce believes they are instrumental in sto-rytelling.
“I am very excited to bring this play to life, I cannot wait to see it on stage – it would just be mind blowing,” he said.
“I am really proud of the songs – I have been writing
since I was a teenager but this feels like it’s meant to be.
“There is some really strong songwriting in this because I was so focused on where these songs were going to go that it helps tell a continual story.”
There is no set date for the play’s opening weekend however Bruce is hoping to have the play ready to go by the end of the year and has cited Merriland Hall as the possible host
