The Tea Party frontman and Twelve Foot Ninja drummer share the Prince Bandroom stage on 6 June.
Jeff Martin and Shane Russell are joining forces for a rare collaborative show at the Prince Bandroom. The Tea Party frontman and the drummer known for his work with Melbourne’s Twelve Foot Ninja will take over the St Kilda venue on 6 June for what’s being billed as a one-night-only performance.
Martin has spent more than three decades at the helm of The Tea Party, the multi-platinum-selling, multi-Juno-nominated Canadian trio whose sound fuses heavy rock with Middle Eastern and Indian instrumentation. According to his official website, Martin now calls Australia home — and has spent years collecting and learning traditional instruments from his travels through the Middle East and India, all of which feed into his performances.
Jeff Martin with Shane Russell
- 6 June
- Prince Bandroom, St Kilda, VIC
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Russell, meanwhile, earned his reputation behind the kit with Twelve Foot Ninja, the Melbourne-born act whose official site describes them as a “genre-hopping Australian alt metal band.” It’s a fitting description for a group whose catalogue has never sat comfortably in one lane.
Martin’s work with The Tea Party drew heavily on oud, sitar and tabla sounds from as early as the band’s 1993 debut Splendor Solis, while Russell’s drumming with Twelve Foot Ninja required navigating wild genre shifts within individual songs.
It’s a pairing that makes more sense than it might first appear — two musicians from very different corners of Australian and Canadian rock, both allergic to playing it straight.
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