Plenty of artists dream of one day realizing their music in a larger-than-life, theatrical stage production with costumes, characters, and rock god stage presence, but most of them would assume that’s something they could only do with a massive budget, a national stage, or a bit of household notoriety.
But at last year’s Norman Music Festival, glammed-out Oklahoman prog-rocker The Muffled Siren proved that assumption wrong by staging a full-scale, fully unexpected rock opera on one of the small outdoor stages, complete with costumed actors, monologues, stage props, and epic, sweeping rock n roll all in just under 30 minutes, with the whole set professionally filmed and dropped to watch online in full just last month.
But behind the theatrical, sequined stage persona of The Muffled Siren is singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Gavin Taylor, who created the full narrative concert and the album behind it, entitled “The Nursing Home Milkshake,” as a tribute to his late grandmother.
And if the concertgoers in the audience thought they were surprised by the production, Taylor says that the festival organizers were just as blindsided.
Gavin Taylor: It just snowballed, and I didn't tell anybody, and there was a lot of just madness, you know? It was complete madness
Brett Fieldcamp: That madness, Taylor says, was born from a lifelong ambition to live out his rock opera dreams before a captive audience, attempting to stage and film a full narrative concert performance with only two months’ of preparation and no prior knowledge from the festival staff that they should expect props, actors, and dramatic readings between the guitar solos.
Gavin Taylor: I grew up in Norman and had this sort of, like, I guess you could say fantasy for a long time, like if I ever got some sort of headlining slot, I'm just gonna do that sort of opus that's been in my brain.
I've had this concept-album rock opera for a long time, and I just felt like, you know, there needed to be some sort of catalyst for me to just jump into it, and I needed some pressure. And so I got an email that we were going to be a headliner, and it was kind of just like I told myself, you know, I'd really go out and basically put on “Rocky Horror” in like 30 minutes, and try to get some sort of narrative.
I was completely in over my head, but I just kind of made this, like, sickening promise to myself that I'd do it.
Brett Fieldcamp: It was a promise that carried more weight and relevance than just a simple lifelong dream.
The album, stage show, and now concert film all comprise “The Nursing Home Milkshake,” a psychedelic hard-rock opera inspired by Taylor’s grandmother, a colorful, unabashed and flamboyant woman that lost the ability to speak following a stroke and that lived out her years in a fraught and troubled nursing home, but who never lost her love and her gratitude for something as simple as the milkshakes that his family would bring her .
Gavin Taylor: I just looked at that simple image of her drinking a milkshake and was like, okay, well, I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. I need to start making art. And I need to delineate what vices and what escaping really is, both as an artist, but also, like in the zeitgeist. What is that? What is the “nursing home milkshake” for everybody?
That's where I kind of started writing the show, and started writing a lot about vices, but a lot about escapism, and a lot about how we escape from, you know, the world being on fire constantly. You know what I mean?
Brett Fieldcamp: That’s the urgency that Taylor says he carries into everything that he does as The Muffled Siren, especially in the age of AI-generated entertainment and carefully curated public personas.
For Gavin Taylor, every chance to express himself and his humanity, and every opportunity to indulge his own larger-than-life persona, is like the milkshake that he’s always looking forward to.
Gavin Taylor: In a weird way, I feel like people are externalizing their psyches. Not in a panicked way, but almost like there could be a time where that is jeopardized.
That's kind of why I felt like I had to do this very small, micro version of “Nursing Home,” is like, I don't know if there's gonna be these projects that could diminish what I'm doing right now. And I feel like a lot of artists are feeling like “I gotta rush to put out what it is I'm trying to say,” while also maintaining authenticity.
Now more than ever, it's like, let me be as ostentatious as possible.
Brett Fieldcamp: “The Muffled Siren presents: The Nursing Home Milkshake Live” is available to watch now on YouTube, and you can keep up with Gavin Taylor and his glam-rock alter ego by following @themuffledsiren on Instagram.
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