A muse can be found in the most unlikely places. But for Neal Medlyn, that place is usually MTV.

He’s one of New York City’s most unpredictable performance artists, known for his popular cabaret show Our Hit Parade featuring Medlyn and friends performing alternative renditions of the day’s most popular songs (or Kathleen Hanna telling the story about how she inspired “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” no biggie), and THE NEAL MEDLYN EXPERIENCE LIVE!, a one-man-plus-two-backup-dancers re-enactment of Beyonce’s 2007 concert DVD. And that’s just the beginning of the musical trip that is Neal Medlyn.

Each year for the past six years, the lanky, blond-haired Texas native staged an experimental show based on a different pop music icon—Lionel Richie, Prince, Phil Collins, Britney Spears, and Hannah Montana. But his latest “bomb ass music based extravaganza” sent him from the Top 40 into the underground, drug-induced, Faygo-drenched, male bonding-ritualized world of the [recently SXSW-legitimized, natch] Insane Clown Posse and their devoted legion of fans, Juggalos and Juggalettes.

Wicked Clown Love premiered in a short run at the Kitchen arts centre in New York in early February, where Medlyn, his best friend Farris Craddock, DJ Carmine Covelli, and a team of five fellow “Monsters” welcomed the audience to their interpretation of ICP’s Dark Carnival—the mythological world that much of ICP’s conceptual music takes place in. Several Faygo showers, torn jean shorts and Nike sandals with socks, a wrestling match, and performances of “Murder Go Round,” “Halls of Illusions” and “Bang! Pow! Boom!” sent three real-life Juggalos, and their middle fingers, storming out of the theatre on opening night.

Medlyn’s work is a testament to his love for music and his fascination with those who make it their life. We spoke to him about his influences, The Gathering, and how he too is a Juggalo.

AUX: What do you look for in music icons that you construct shows around?

Neal Medlyn: To me, what was interesting about Britney Spears was that she was like so many women I grew up around because they really peaked when they were like 16, and then when they were 21 they just started getting crazy. They already had some kids, they had already been divorced, you know shit just started to fall apart.

And then with Hannah Montana, it’s the concept that she’s one person and then she’s another person. That’s in the Prince show too, how he’s one person and then he’s another person, and then just replaced that with a glyph that’s not even a word. And with Phil Collins, I feel like his songs are super smooth and perfect for the grocery store, but he’s really mad in all of his songs. He’s just like ‘Whatever! Our relationship wasn’t going anywhere anyway so I don’t even know why I’m sad!’

Or for the Insane Clown Posse, it’s all violence except that it’s also all about family and acceptance. So in all of those people, that’s what draws me to them is some weird dissonance in them. That cultural schizophrenia is inherent in a lot of American things.

How do you approach performing their songs?

In the last few shows I’ve been reworking the music. With Britney, because it was all about chaos, I made a lot of noisy electro versions of the songs. With Hannah Montana, it was about indie music so I listened to a lot of, whatever, I don’t know, like Bon Iver, and Copeland, and The Palace Brothers, and Will Oldham, and that sort of thing. And for this show, it’s a lot of sampling. But I thought I won’t sample things that a lot hip hop music does, I’m going to sample sensitive and conflicted male singer-songwriter types. So there’s a Dan Fogelberg single and a Mountain Goats single, and a Phil Collins sample.

You actually went to the Gathering of the Juggalos in research for this show, what was that like?

It was really great! It’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s not even a town; it’s an area called Cave-in-Rock, Illinois. The nearest airport is Nashville and it’s a three-hour drive away. There are no lights at night, no police, and of course no corporate sponsorship.

For me, I felt like I was interested in all this stuff but I kept feeling like I was just going to end up explaining it or something. And I wasn’t into that, I wanted to create my own vision of this world out of this material. I didn’t want to give a lecture about Juggalos or something. But once I was there, I was like ‘Oh no, now I’m in this place I can understand, and I can see myself as a Juggalo.’

Do you consider yourself a Juggalo?

I think so, yeah. I don’t know if they would want me to say that. But I am a Juggalo in a lot of ways, based on where I grew up and a lot of the life experience I’ve had. The way I got into performing was being into these really extreme performers like Kathleen Hanna (who is also the set designer for Wicked Clown Love), Karen Finley, and GG Allin. And because this was before the internet, I didn’t really know what they did so I just imagined it, and that’s just kind of what I ended up doing. So there’s always been this kind of out-of-controlness or wildness in my shows because that’s just what I’m like.

And so the way that [the Juggalos] embrace this ‘Yeah, it’s fucking crazy and chaotic!’ attitude is something I relate with, for better or worse. It’s sort of, being proud of the fact that you’re, like, a scrub. Instead of going to school in really ugly sneakers and bad hand-me-down pants, you walk through school like ‘Yeah, check it out, I’m awesome’ because of that stuff. And you know, the whole Faygo thing, instead of rapping about Hennessey or Courvoisier or something expensive, it’s the cheapest soda that you could ever buy and that’s going to be your awesome thing. There’s something creative about the negativity that they’re into.