Eskimo Joe frontman, Kav Temperley, is bringing his solo regional tour to Canberra Theatre on 13 August. Before he hit the road, CW caught up with Temperley from his home in Western Australia to talk about life in small towns; why people leave and why they often come back. 

1.  Your new song Graduation Day is an ode to small town love. Where did the inspiration come from?

Someone approached me to write a song for a heritage artist and I sat down with my wife, and we discussed that it would have to be about a small town and people breaking out. So, we thought about our experience. In Freo, in our high school, there was this rite of passage on graduation day; you would jump off the Old Fremantle Traffic Bridge and cars would stop and there would always be someone would jump out and yell at you, then we started getting into this story.

If you really want to do something with whatever you create, you actually have to leave, otherwise you get stuck in this vortex, some people never leave.

I was doing this writing during the pandemic; it was me alone in a room for long periods of time. I got to the point I was like ‘Katy (Steele), do you want to come sing this song with me’. We talked about her story, she left and went to New York expecting some romantic experience, but it was lonely, then she met her soulmate, a Scottish man, and they came back to Western Australia.  

It’s a sentimental full story song about how we have to leave to find what you’re looking for, but it is probably right before your nose.

2. Does this connection to small towns play a part in the reason you’re doing a regional tour?

I think for me hitting the road and doing a regional tour, it’s just two and a half years of everything shutting down, the music industry being completely decimated, people living in a cocoon to being told they can back into the world, it can be a painful experience.

It was in regional towns I started winning people over at the time when we were starting out and I want to go out and win them over again.

What Eskimo Joe sounded like when I would play them on acoustic guitar to them, that’s kind of what you’ll hear at the show.

3. How do you choose what towns to go to?

We reach out to everyone and see who wants to have us for starters, and a bunch of people put up their hand and then we put together a road map. We were passionate about getting to remote and regional areas on this tour; Canberra is the biggest town we are going to.

One of the places we are going, Cossack, an abandoned gold mining town, is where my great grandfather Sandy Beaton discovered gold; that’s why they decided to stay in Western Australia. I didn’t know that last time I was there.

Hopefully, the people in the towns appreciate it and come and see the show.

4. Eskimo Joe is touring later this year. What are the differences on the road when you tour with the band?

With Eskimo Joe, we’re going to play two of our albums, Black Fingernails Red Wine and A Song is a City, from start to finish; they are important albums to us and our fans. They will be big stadium shows where it sounds like the record.

By myself, I will still play a lot of those songs. They will be different versions, more like they sounded when I was writing them.

For example, Foreign Land started as a gentle ballad before it turned into a big rock and roll song. We were in New York playing with the Symphony Orchestra and I remember being on the red carpet when someone told us Health Ledger had passed away and he was from Western Australia, too. He had died streets away from where I was walking that day; the next day I sat down and I wrote the song.

A good song should be able to be played in any genre.

5. Is there anything on your to-do list while you’re here in Canberra?

I might go check out some amazing art which I like to do when I’m there. I’ve got some friends who have moved there so I might have dinner with them and just enjoy the place.

I’m excited to check out where I’ll be playing. I haven’t been there before, and it looks like a good place to play.

Kav Temperley’s new album Machines of Love & Grace is due to be released in September. Catch Temperley live at Canberra Theatre, Saturday 13 August. Tickets: canberratheatrecentre.com.au

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