A 10-song album about a haunted lighthouse in Maine, also to be presented as a musical, may not seem the most obvious choice from singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik. This is doubly so, considering it comes on the heels of Spring Awakening—arguably the most rock ’n’ roll musical since Hedwig and the Angry Inch—which garnered Sheik both a Grammy and a Tony. But in his mind, Whisper House (Victor Records/ Sony BMG) makes total sense: “I set out recording the songs as demos for the stage production,” he says. “But when my manager and some other people around heard the songs, they were like, ‘This is your next record.’”
The concept was inspired by Harry Nilsson’s 1970s fable The Point! (which was released as an album, an animated film narrated by Ringo Starr, and a stage play) about a boy born with a round head in a land of pointy-headed people (well, it was the ’70s). “It’s a morality tale,” Sheik explains. “Here are all these people who have a point, and a boy who has to advocate to be thought of as a person like everyone else because he didn’t have a point. So when I made Whisper House, this was my version of The Point. And people can listen to the record, however they listen to records, and know that it’s also going to exist as a stage production.”
Does the enormous success of Spring Awakening, which recently opened on the West End to the same rave reviews it received stateside, afford Sheik the luxury of doing such a conceptual project? “I wonder,” he says goodnaturedly. “I have to give Sony a lot of credit. They have not been heavy-handed. They’ve released [Whisper House] as a straight-ahead, singer-songwriter record with the knowledge that once the show is actually staged, there will be a second round of marketing and promotion that will relate to the theatergoing audience.”
“As much as I’m trying to bring those worlds together, they’re very different sets of listeners,” he acknowledges. “I’m doing what I can to fight the good fight. It’s like I’m trying to say to the rock music people, ‘Theater can be really great,’ and I’m trying to say to the theater people, ‘Music can sound all different ways and still be good on stage.’” Whisper House is available at record stores citywide; duncansheik.com/whisperhouse.
