Imagine getting to travel around Australia with two of your oldest friends, seeing the sights and doing what you love most in the world – singing.
That’s just what Donna Simpson, one third of folk-rockers The Waifs, was thinking about last week from her home in Minneapolis in the US.
It was freezing cold and still snowy and you could tell that Donna’s mind was drifting back to her homeland and the tour. In fact, she flew out just two days after our chat.
The band, who are as Australian as red dust, kangaroos and saltbush, are now a week into their Aussie-wide trek in Taragos (and in planes these days) and they stop off in Byron (our nearest gig unless you want to head north to the Tivoli) on Tuesday, March 1.
“When people ask we what I do for a living these days, I feel a bit embarrassed,” the affable mother of a five-year-old boy explained, giggling about her good fortune.
“I tell them I travel around the world with my best friends and play music.”
The Waifs, Donna Simpson, her sister Vickki Thorn and their best mate Josh Cunningham, have been doing just that for just on 20 years now. Donna said it was amazing to believe it was so long – not that back in the beginning, gigging around WA, they thought they would be still making music and having fun all these years down the track.
“The band has never been planners, we have always been dreamers,” is Donna’s answer when asked to reflect back on why they are still having fun.
The trio, scattered around the world for most of the year now, love nothing more than taking a break away from kids and houses with their old friends.
They also like nothing more than making music and are promoting their forthcoming sixth album Temptations (due out on Jarrah Records, the company they set up with John Butler) on March 4.
It is amazing to think that a trip that began in a van in 1992, with the three troubadours playing gigs anywhere in Australia that would have them, has led The Waifs to multiple ARIA awards, platinum albums and successful tours across the world.
The hard yards in those early days paid off in terms of their career, but also bound the three of them together as friends.
Josh, Donna and Vikki have all moved on in their personal lives since those formative years, whether through relationships, having children or relocating to different parts of the world, yet The Waifs’ journey continues.
That ever-evolving trip, and the bond that has developed between them, is very much central to the emotion, sentiment and spirituality of the 11 songs on Temptation.
