"Well we saved Come Said the Boy from Mondo Rock.

"I've said the idea was to do songs we don't respect, I absolutely detested that song," he said with dramatic conviction.

The song choices were up to Perkins but there was one criteria that had to be filled.

"It had to be funny. We had a lot of fun during the process.

"I did present the list to the boys on a daily basis and they'd groan `Oh, God, no' and the louder the groan the bigger the tick."

His "boys" are Charlie Owens (who does some fine '80s-era work on the Roland SH- 101 synthesiser), Joel Silbersher, James Cruikshank, Pat Bourke and Gus Agars.

The frontman for The Cruel Sea and the Beasts of Bourbon confirmed while the song list may have been brought to the studio by him, he certainly did not look into his own record collection for inspiration.

"Even though she was a spunk I never bought a Bonnie Tyler album; I don't think I even owned the Alice Cooper song on there - You and Me, which was kind of the closest thing to a song that I liked.

"But growing up that was always considered a crap song as far as Alice Cooper was concerned - one of his soppy one that you'd just throw away".

Perkins put in a request for (and secured) duets with Jimmy Barnes and Magic Dirt's Adalita but he said The Baby Animals' Suze Di Marchi and Jet's Nic Cester insisted on a guernsey.

"Nic Cester heard about it and heard how much fun we were having and just begged to be involved.

"We exchanged many text messages whittling down, working through the classics until he suggested Africa by Toto, and I said `No. Hold The Line," he said as he re-enacts the converation with pause and lowered-voice dramatism.

Perkins said the band recorded 31 songs, but were forced to whittle it down to 18.

"My Sweet Lord had to go, The Lord's Prayer ... actually I think we are going to release those on a single and get tapped into the Christian market.

"I mean we are all in white, we look pretty angelic."

He promises a big production as the sextet play many of Australia's casinos with two of Sydney's finest drag queens, Amelia Airhead and Minnie Cooper in tow.

"We couldn't think of any more appropriate setting for this sort of thing.

"You will never see the Ladyboyz at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne or something like that."

With a whiff of the absurd mixed in with an Old Spice-like scent of cabaret, Perkins sounds like he is enjoying this incarnation as much as he believes the fans will.

"It is a band that brings joy. Seriously. Even when we are not playing.

"We had a photo session in St Kilda and we walked down Fitzroy St, all together in our suits, people were just gobsmacked. They didn't know who we were, what we were doing, they just went `oooh, oooh' they were just happy to see us.

"We just love bringing so much joy to people."

Joy to the punters and passers by and perhaps joy to the songs he and his boys free from their endless cycle of easy- listening-radio-imprisoned lives.

"I can hear their gratitude `you've saved me'."

Tex Perkins and his Ladyboyz play Wrest Point Casino Showroom, Hobart, on October 17; and Saturday October 18 at the Country Club Showroom, Launceston.