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Please Cheese me: Lounge Against the Machine returning to Vegas

Updated June 8, 2022 - 10:47 am

This Cheese is cut out for a Vegas residency.

Keeping in character, Richard Cheese would put a new spin on an old concept.

“I’ve said during my show, ‘Welcome to our residency. It’s a one-night residency,’ ” the swanky frontman says. “One show in Vegas is maybe an hour and 15 minutes. So, what I’d like to do is a five-minute show every two hours, every single day in a week. I could totally do that.”

Cheese is the alter ego of Mark Jonathan Davis. His band, Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine, returns to town at 9 p.m. Friday in Club Madrid at Sunset Station. Cheese and his backing trio have been reimagining pop and rock classics since before “reimagining” was even a music term. For 20 years, the Cheese turnovers have included send-ups of “(You Drive Me) Crazy” by Britney Spears, a crooning “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot, big brass behind Radiohead’s “Creep,” and a poppin’ take on Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.”

The album concepts follow the swing format. “Sunny Side of the Moon” is Cheese’s greatest-hits package. “Besame Queso,” a collection of Latin-themed hits from 2021, is his latest. Cheese YT

Having premiered the act with the album “Lounge Against the Machine” in October 2000, this Cheese is not going bad.

Johnny Kats: OK, the first time I saw you was at Venus Lounge at The Venetian in late 2001, I think it was. That’s where Tao Nightclub is now. A long time ago. I just remember how fun that show was.

Richard Cheese: That was early, and I didn’t actually do any concerts until after the CD came out. I didn’t actually have a band. I was just recording the CD. And then the record label said, “You should go on tour,” and I said, “I don’t have a band.” And they said, “Get one.” So I hired some musicians. It’s been nonstop ever since.

What’s your musical training, to remake and sing all of these songs?

I’ve had no professional training. I do what everyone else does: I sing in the car, and I sing in the shower. And I’ve been doing that long enough that I’m really good at it, at least the showering part.

Your early inspirations?

I listened to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Mel Torme and Sammy Davis Jr. I studied what they did, and I listened to the recordings over and over and over again. I don’t read music. I can’t tell you what a C or a D or an F is. But you know, I’ve I’ve sort of educated myself by listening to all the music that came out in the ’50s and ’60s. I did go to a singing coach a few times, but I am too old a dog to learn any new tricks. All the singing coaches were telling me all these techniques I should adopt, and I just couldn’t do it. I physically could not figure out what they were talking about.

What is the creative process for your arrangements?

We’re really going back to the same well for every arrangement we do. But there are so many different styles in that well. Lounge music encompasses everything from traditional pop vocal ballads to swing, big band to bossa nova and cha-cha. There’s a huge variety of musical styles that we can choose from. Most of the stuff we do is swing because I feel like we’re a swing band. But occasionally we’ll do Latin arrangements, or occasionally we’ll do some exotica arrangements. When we’re doing an album, we don’t want all the songs to sound exactly the same. So we might do an arrangement in the style of “Fever” by Peggy Lee, or a 1950s doo-wop arrangement A song by Snoop Dogg, “Gin And Juice,” you listen to the lyrics, get a feeling of the song and say, “Oh, well, this is a song about gin and juice. We should make it a swing song, because it sounds like a Vegas kind of thing.”

Have you ever had a direct response from any of the artists you’ve covered?

Yeah, we’ve had a bunch. Just last year, Insane Lounge Posse — I’m sorry, Insane Clown Posse we heard from after we covered “(Expletive) the World.” They called me and said, “We want to include your cover on our new album,” because they loved it so much. So they stuck it on the end of one of their tracks, like a secret bonus on their most recent album, “Yum Yum Bedlam.” I also heard from Corey Taylor, from Slipknot; he’s a Richard Cheese fan.

I’m looking over your discography, more than 30 albums. Do you think it’s become somewhat of an honor to be on a Richard Cheese album?

Yeah, let’s hope so. Artists appreciate that I’m respecting the music and the lyrics, and I wouldn’t record the song unless I thought it was great. I wish that more artists like Taylor Swift would call me. But she never calls. … I would love to hear from Britney Spears. She’s very talented, and very Vegas.

And no residency plans for Vegas?

Well, we have always heard from people who are interested, but I am very expensive because I’m lazy. In order to get me to do anything, on a regular basis, I really need a lot of money.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His “PodKats!” podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.

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