By Kaitlyn Hardy

Niki Luparelli — comedian, singer, former Marilyn Monroe impersonator, and overall goddess of glamour — has graced the colorful corners of Boston’s music and burlesque scene with her talent for tribute.

Like most musicians, she grew up surrounded and fascinated by music, belting Disney songs and singing in church and school choirs. Luparelli initially went to school to study opera, but changed her focus to jazz, valuing its freedom and vocal texture. “Beauty isn’t just one shade of voice,” she says. 

Now, Luparelli hosts annual tribute and burlesque shows, often blending the two arts — living up to the legacy of classic artists such as Led Zeppelin and David Bowie — while stripping down. The repertoire of artists she has covered include Patsy Cline, Peggy Lee, Blondie, Madonna, Stevie Nicks, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, and Lana Del Rey.  

On March 2nd, Luparelli performed a Lana Del Rey tribute show at the Boston Science Museum’s Charles Hayden Planetarium, accompanied by an 11-piece band and psychedelic visual effects. Coming up in May, she’ll be hosting her annual Led Zeppelin burlesque show, Strip Zeppelin. 

We had the honor of sitting down with the woman, the myth, the legend, Luparelli herself. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Why did you decide to start singing covers?

I’ve been in and around groups where they’re writing all their own songs and their songs are great, but they’re playing these shows and they’re not making money. If you want to make money, like at all, you have to do covers.

Which artists did you cover first in your career?

I started doing cabaret stuff like Patsy Cline. I’ve always kind of done this vintage look thing, so I was doing Peggy Lee type stuff for a while. I did a Bowie cover thing — the first one was like ten years ago — and then I started adding burlesque, so it was ‘David Boobie.’ That still goes on every Black Friday in Somerville. From there I was like, ‘What else can we do?’ so I’ve tried a bunch of different artists to see what would suit me. One year we did Madonna. I love her, but it’s not really my voice, it was straining for me. But I did Stevie Nicks — she really suits me.

How do you choose which artists to cover? 

It’s usually just whoever I have a musical boner for. Like Bowie — I’m obsessed with Bowie, he’s my favorite person in the world. And Lana I’ve been wanting to do forever, I just love her.

Is it daunting to take on artists with such renown and legacy? Do you feel you have a responsibility to uphold the artists and their songs?

I was really worried about that for the Lana show. I know that there’s a lot of stanning and a kind of ‘How dare you! No one can ever sing this besides her!’ attitude that I was really afraid of. I’m sure there’s some of that, but I think that a lot of the people that love her love her for many reasons, and they love the songs and would be happy to hear them played live. I always feel imposter syndrome when I sing the Led Zeppelin show because they’re belting and I’m using basically my Lana voice, switching into head voice. But whatever, I have people stripping, they don’t really seem to notice.

Which artist’s voice and sound is the most natural for you to perform?

Lana, 100%. It sits so comfortably for me. And her poetry too — I’m like, ‘Are you in my head? How are you writing this stuff?’ It just speaks to me.

If you could perform alongside one of the artists you’ve covered, who would that be?

I’ve always wanted to be David Bowie’s backup singer, but then he died and I felt like Inigo Montoya at the end of ‘The Princess Bride,’ like I’d been trying to be David Bowie’s backup singer for so long, I don’t even know what to do with my life anymore! Lana should definitely hire me to be her backup singer. And we can party after, I’ll bring my vape, she can bring her vape, we’ll get high by the beach.

What kind of crowd do your shows draw in?

I don’t know that I get a ton of 18 year olds for some of this older music, but I do get a few. And we’ll get from that age up to like 70s, 80s. We’ll get people that were fans of the music when it first came out and we’ll get people that have just discovered the artist and they love them now.

Did this demographic shift at all when you were performing Lana, a more contemporary artist, compared to Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin? 

This is sad to say, but the audience that was coming to see my Pink Floyd show, “Blonde Side of the Moon,’ they’re like literally dying out, and same with people who were coming to my Patsy Cline shows and stuff. Yeah, there are some cool youth that are into that music, they exist, but not as many. So to have a whole different group come in was so amazing and everybody was so wonderful and nice.

How did the Lana Del Rey planetarium show come to be?

The museum asked me if I would think about doing a Lana show, and I had been thinking about doing a Lana show because I love her. I listen to a lot of Lana, I really connect to her music. I think she’s the best contemporary songwriter out there and I think her songs should be treated like the art that they are. I can’t get over how prolific she is, and she’s got such a great concept of melody.

So true! What did the preparation for this show entail?

The main group — drums, bass, guitar, keys — that’s my band that I use for almost everything right now. The cellist I found through Facebook — I find a lot of my band people through Facebook. I’ll put out there that I’m looking for a violinist or a cellist or something, and usually within an hour there’s all these suggestions for me to pick through. So I had really good luck with that. The violist works with me at Crystal Ballroom — I produce a lot of shows at the Crystal Ballroom and he’s one of the house managers. The harpist is the daughter of a friend of mine, and the backup singers are my friends that have sung backup with me on-and-off over the years. So it just kind of all came together. Then I had to then get all these parts written out. You can get the sheet music, but they don’t have everything like all those string parts that you hear, it’s just the piano and the chords. So I hired this guy in Italy and he wrote up these gorgeous arrangements for all these songs. If the band wasn’t around and it wasn’t an easy song to play on the piano like ‘Salvatore,’ I would practice karaoke on YouTube while I was cooking or something. Or I’d sneak into karaoke places where I didn’t know people and put in all the songs from my show.

Do you have plans to cover any more contemporary artists?

One of my best friends is drag queen extraordinaire, Kandi Dishe. She produced the Boston Drag Gauntlet and Providence Drag Gauntlet, and she’s been trying to get me to do Taylor, which I also don’t think suits my voice, but she’s like, ‘You’d be an idiot not to do Taylor Swift.’ I really wanna focus right now on being the best Lana show that I can make happen. I’m not satisfied with the number of songs we did. I’d love to be doing 30 of her songs during a show, so that’s gonna take time.

So many of your tribute shows have wonderfully cheeky, punny names (David Boobie, Stevie Niki, BlonDDie, Blonde Side of the Moon) — what are some contenders for a Lana tribute show name?

The ones we came up with, to keep it simple, ‘Niki Del Rey and the Million Dollar Band.’ Or I was like, should I call myself ‘Niki Fucking Rockwell’? Facebook is not going to allow that in my advertising, but I think that’s funny.

*Listing off suggestions from her Facebook* “‘The Lizzie Grant Experience,’ ‘Snow on the Bitches,’ ‘Video Dames,’ ‘Lana Del Slay,’ ‘Cinnamon Girl,’ ‘Summertime Sadness,’ ‘Sparkle Jumprope Queen,’ ‘The May Jailers,’ ‘The Lanarellis,’ ‘The Honeymooners,’ and ‘Smoking Rose.’”

What are your burlesque shows like?

Pre pan-Demi Lovato, there was a club called Oberon, which was in Harvard Square and I played for many years. That was our art-friendly, queer-friendly, funky, hip, cool theater. That closed and the Crystal Ballroom opened up. So there we have a band on stage, playing live and the burlesque performers will come out, do their interpretation of the song while performing it live and then bada bang! And then it’s the next act. It’s like old-timey stripping; it’s the tease; it’s like ‘Ooh!’ tongue-in-cheek. You’ll see an act that’s incredibly hilarious, that’ll make you laugh, and then you’ll see one that’s really moving and will bring a little tear to your eye. I find it really empowering. I try to book a wide range of body types and humans to make it really inclusive and fun, and people get into it! They’re screaming, they’re hooting, they’re hollering.

As a comedian, singer, and performer, you’re obviously an incredibly talented person. Do you have any hidden talents?

It’s not really hidden, but I’m a very good kazoo player — like pretty excellent. I’m the Blues Traveler of kazoo. I usually have one in my bra. I was in Puerto Rico and we went to this jazz club and it had open jams for everybody. I go up and do a song and there’s a point where, if there was a horn, there’d be a horn solo, so I pulled out my boobie kazoo and did this solo and they were all like, ‘Holy shit!’

What exciting performances do you have coming up? 

I have Strip Zeppelin coming up in two months. I just got into ‘Night of 1,000 Stevies.’ It’s 31 years in the running, it’s in New York City, and 1,000 people dressed up like Stevie Nicks show up and they have performances in front of all these people. So I’m gonna be one of very few singers that they booked to come down. That one, I’m nervous for because it’s 1,000 people and they’re like the biggest Stevie Nicks fans in the entire world.