Matt Groening may have convinced stars such as Danny Devito, Paul Newman, Sir Patrick Stewart and even Michael Jackson to appear on The Simpsons, but so far his attempts to woo the Tiger Lillies have gone without success.

The alternative underground cabaret band, who have fans all over the world and last year celebrated their 20th anniversary, have been confirmed on the bill for Groening's ATP Festival at Butlins Minehead in May.

Despite being friends with The Simpsons creator, Martyn Jacques, Adrian Huge and Adrian Stout have so far resisted Groening's advances to be turned into cartoons.

"Matt is a friend of ours and whenever we play in Los Angeles he comes and watches," says Jacques.

"We were playing in Montreal once and he brought the whole cast of The Simpsons to the gig and then invited us to go and see a recording the next day, it was great.

"They did an episode with all the actors doing the voices on stage and it was very funny to watch.

"He has asked us to be in it before but I looked at him very sceptically.

"He might be a big fan of Tiger Lillies but I said to him, 'do you think your producers want some obscure underground cabaret band on The Simpsons?'

"Maybe it will happen one day though."

Tiger Lillies songs can be somewhat explicit and, among other things, focus on the macabre but there is plenty of humour mixed in as well, led by Jacques opera trained voice and accordion playing "It has always been pretty dark, that was always there," says Jacques, who founded the band in 1989.

"There are lots of songs about death and separation but over the years we started to introduce humour, obscenity and blasphemy.

"From that initial dark sound I realised we could juxtapose humour with that and it would really work, it created a lot more variety."

Jacques turned to the accordion when he was in his late 20s having struggled to fashion a music career as a guitarist, and knew from the very first gig that he had found his calling.

"The first time we did a gig I came on stage and I was very nervous," he recalls.

"It was only in front of about 70 people but I didn't know how the audience would respond but I came off stage thinking I had a job for the rest of my life.

"I realised on that first night we were good enough as the reaction we got was amazing and has been ever since."

Tiger Lillies, Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, March 12, 8pm, £15. Call 020 8688 9291 or visit fairfield.co.uk.