30 years ago, sisters Vikki Thorn and Donna Simpson, took off in a van with Josh Cunningham to busk and gig around Albany in Western Australia.
This was the beginning of The WAiFS, as it was originally styled, endless touring cycle. Fasting forward three decades and The Waifs are still on the road every weekend.
Sans a forced break during the lockdown, The Waifs have consistently led festival lineups across 2022 and dived into a headline national tour, but to Vikki Thorn, the folk band have slowed down.
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“We have a history of constantly touring, but that obviously came to a grinding halt, and then the rest of the world did. But now we don’t go out as much anymore and we’re trying out this new way of touring where we go out just for weekends rather than head out for six weeks at a time. It’s just, I think, a natural phase for a band into a 30-year career, you wind back your live touring, especially when we’re not recording albums, and we haven’t recorded albums in a few years.
But after having a long hiatus it’s come in waves. Now it feels like we’re very busy. I’ve been busy and I know individually we’ve been busy with our solo projects over the last few years, but it hasn’t actually been a lot of Waifs stuff until this year and suddenly it starts up Summersault Series, all these big outdoor concerts, this Crowded House series and festivals. It’s like nothing. And then bang,” she explains.
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Having just wrapped up several A Day On The Green shows, supporting Crowded House, The Waifs have been announced as joining the Port Fairy Folk Festival lineup. It’s a stage that they’ve graced multiple times before, and the giant in The Waifs beanstalk story.
“It was pretty instrumental in The Waifs’ career. It kick-started our whole career in Australia and overseas, that one festival because we were a band that was doing pretty well around Melbourne and I know Port Fairy really draws from Victorian artists. We went from sort of doing all the local hangs in Melbourne and then Port Fairy booked us and they just sort of drop you in on one of those big tents.
“When you’ve got a few thousand people sitting there, but maybe they haven’t heard of you, maybe they’re waiting for the next act; the amount of exposure that a young and up-and-coming or unknown act can get at those festivals is almost equivalent to an overnight success, really,” Thorn explains.
“That’s really what happened to The Waifs. People started booking us and just putting us on in front of a huge amount of people that were interested in our sort of music that was Australian and that’s when our career started to take off. The Waifs became really popular in Victoria, more so than in WA, and I would say that is exclusively due to Port Fairy.
“It also launched our overseas career because the National Folk Alliance was based and did a lot of work with Port Fairy. They were the first people to sort of call us up and say, “Hey, we’re going to go overseas and do these shows overseas and in Canada”. That then launched our North American career so it’s all from that one weekend at Port Fairy.”
It would lead to the next phase of their career, where their 2003 multi-award-winning album Up All Night would burst The Waifs into legendary territory. Yet The Waifs don’t forget their roots, returning to the festival year after year. Their longstanding relationship with Port Fairy Folk Festival is mutually favourable, with the festival acknowledging the band as Maton Artist of the Year during the last festival appearance.
“They presented us with an amazing guitar with an inscription on it. That was really nice! I still play the Port Ferry guitar and that was one of my favourite, most cherished festival moments. But the festival itself just has the best community spirit vibe. I always loved Port Fairy because I think it feels like a little Irish town. I just love seeing the quality of the musicians that they bring, whether they’re from Melbourne or from overseas, and there’s the Irish and Celtic music there, that’s where I fell in love with that music, just watching these world-class musicians play that beautiful hypnotic music on that stormy coastline. It’s really special.”
Their 2023 return to the coast will see the band playing songs across their revered catalogue including their celebrated 2017 ARIA #1 album, Ironbark and their debut 25-year-old titular album, looking at having a full circle moment with their fans and the festival.
“We want to go on this little journey with you as well because we were there 25 years ago, so we’re gonna check in with you again here. And that was a testament to Ironbark going number one and realising you’re all still listening. Our sound hasn’t changed, it’s not like we’re artists that have morphed and changed a whole lot. The sounds got more electric and bigger probably, starting out on those Port Fairy stages we were initially just three of us, Donna, Josh and I playing two acoustic guitars.
“Maybe we’ll bring back that a little bit at the set next year; do an acoustic section where there’s just the three of us.”
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The process of touring, setlist curation and celebrating milestones has Thorn itching to start writing the next The Waifs album with her aim of making their legacy album.
“The band has been having like a real reflective moment where you go, yeah, this, we made a career out of this and we’re doing really well. I’m amazed that we’re still doing it. We were just talking the other day about making the definitive Waifs album, which, up to this point, I think it’s been Up All Night, but making an album now 30 years down the track where we actually sit and write songs together based on the music we love because we’ve never actually written whole a album together. We write songs individually and just put them together collectively. I think you know the album we still need to make is the one where we sit in a room and actually write the songs together. But it isn’t an easy process.
“But I think we’ve all agreed it’s something we should be able to do. Like, it can’t be that hard after playing music for as long as we have to just go, “OK, let’s knock this out and write a song collectively; write an album collectively”. I think it would be fun to do while we’re on the road,” explains Thorn.
The Waifs will be spending plenty of time in vehicles over the coming months so album number nine will hopefully be on the horizon before 2025.
In the meantime help the legendary folk act celebrate their history at Port Fairy Folk Festival from 10 – 13 March 2023. Tickets here.
This article was made in partnership with Port Fairy Folk Festival.
