Q&A Scene: KAV TEMPERLEY

Tell us about your new single The Fence feat. John Butler?

I have utmost respect for John whether it be his amazing musicianship or his put your money where your mouth is approach to activism, he is a man of great integrity.

We first got to work together when we co wrote a song for his album home called “we want more”.

So when we sat down to write “The Fence” I thought maybe we were writing another song for his album, but it turned into a duet which is truly wonderful.

The song evolved out of a conversation we were having about where everyone’s heads were at, having to make some big decisions about everything from the environment to vaccinations under the intense pressure of a global pandemic.

What came out of this conversation was the idea that we now live in a world where there is no room to sit on the fence.

What’s your favourite work from your entire career at this point in time?

WHOA! Thats a big question and it depends on your mood, what time of the day it is etc.

But most of the time i find myself most proud of what i’m working on right then and there, and for me right now its my new album “Machines of love & Grace”

Im most proud of the fact that most of this album was written, recorded and performed by me in my little studio in fremantle during the last two and a half years while going in and out of lockdown.

I feel really at home in the studio but it was a daunting task to sit down and create a complete work all by myself, there were times of intense doubt as you can imagine but now that the dust has settled and it’s all complete this is some my favorite work that ever produced

How would you describe your sound in food form and why?

It’s like a delicious soup made with tomato and chorizo that was really popular in the early 70’s that was almost forgotten but now someone has put a modern spin on it, its both classic and deliciously modern.

Tell us a quick, on the road or studio, anecdote.

When myself and Katy Steele were writing and working on the song g

What, or who, inspires you?

I get most excited about storytelling, and when music and storytelling come together in just the right way it’s just magical.

I always wanted to make an album that reads like some sort of post apocalyptic true story, just like my favorite writers Margaret Atwood, Haruki Murakami and Kazou Ishiguro.

The album I’ve written starts with the introduction song “Emergency in D minor” , a song about emerging from isolation looking out of the window at the world and wondering if there’s anyone out there.

Which song do you wish you wrote?

Happy Birthday

What’s next for you?

After my new album “Machines of Love & Grace” comes out on October 19th I’ll be dropping a series of NFT’s on Nov 22nd at a special event at the Oishi gallery in melbourne.

The NFTs are called Love in the key of A,B,C,D,E,F,G and features an original song that I’ve written and re-recorded in the seven different Keys. The art work was done in collaboration with Joseph Dennis who worked on my album artwork. The idea is that this is a web 3 extension of my album and stands alone as a beautiful piece of online art.

I’ll also be hitting the road in February 2023 supporting my new album, playing all capital cities

What’s your scene?

My scene is “Lifers”

We have a saying amongst my friends who all choose to work in the creative sector for a living and that’s that “you are a lifer” the concept that you are sentenced to do what you do for the rest of your life whether anyone is interested in it or not. And I know the look when I look into someone’s eyes and they are a lifer.

Kav Temperley photo credit Jarrad Levy

SOPHOMORE SOLO ALBUM ‘MACHINES OF LOVE & GRACE’ RELEASED TODAY
FEATURING NEW SINGLE ‘THE FENCE’ FEAT. JOHN BUTLER
+ ANNOUNCES NATIONAL TOUR FOR FEBRUARY

MEDIA RELEASE:: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 19

Two-and-a-half years in the making, Eskimo Joe frontman Kav Temperley has unveiled his sophomore solo album, Machines Of Love & Grace. A product of the past few years spent with a global pandemic at the forefront of our collective minds, it’s an album that shows Temperley’s iconic power as a songwriter and a storyteller, and further cements his status as one of the country’s most prominent and beloved voices.

“Machines Of Love & Grace started its life in the very first week of COVID,” explains Temperley, who calls the album his most ambitious work to date. “Myself and my wife had just returned from the US and then one day later the whole entire world shut down. At the same time, I also came down with a mystery virus that was too early in the pandemic to test for COVID. So while everyone went into lockdown, I began to isolate myself in my bedroom only talking to my family through a small crack in the bedroom window.”

Beginning to write his new album as a way to deal with the chaos unfolding around him, Temperley slowly started penning tracks that covered the entire spectrum of emotions felt by the world at large throughout this time. “This album is rooted heavily in storytelling, and my hope is that by telling my story, people get their own stories back in return,” Temperley explains.
The result is an album that is as powerful as it is eclectic, and comfortably sits alongside Temperley’s already-impressive discography as one of his most accomplished records so far. In between the soaring choruses and hard-hitting lyricism, Temperley doesn’t stray from the heavy topics, allowing them to serve as the harsh, realistic yin to the idealistic, comforting yang that the record provides. Machines Of Love & Grace expertly dives head-first into COVID-related themes, including those of self-isolation (Emergency In D Minor) and anti-vaxxers and the environment (The Fence), before switching focus to more widespread problems such as screen addiction in its title track, and the heart-rending realism of issues caused by alcoholism and domestic violence (Last Of The Wine).

All the while, these almost despairing tracks are paired by an overarching search for a sense of place (Homesickness, Graduation Day), combining to provide a unifying soundtrack that shows while we might have all felt an all-encompassing sense of loneliness throughout these past years, we certainly were not alone in our search for clarity.

Temperley also taps a number of his famous friends for Machines Of Love & Grace, including Little Birdy’s Katy Steele, who joins in on Graduation Day, and John Butler, who appears in latest single, The Fence. “I first met John properly back in 2001 when he was living on the studio couch where we were working on our first Eskimo Joe album Girl,” remembers Temperley. “He was a familiar face around town; he could often be found busking outside the Fremantle Markets with his dreadlocks and familiar 12-string guitar. Many years and shared festival lineups later we finally sat down to write a song together for the first time, the song was called We Want More and it ended up on his wonderful album Home.

“So two-and-half-years into the global pandemic, we got together again at his home in the beautiful surrounds of Margaret River,” he adds.“We talked about where our heads were at, all the big decisions we were having to make due to the global pandemic, everything from the environment to the anti-vax movement. That conversation turned into a song called The Fence and where we ended up is that there is no room to sit on the fence.”

Ultimately, Machines Of Love & Grace arrives as an album that Temperley himself describes as being much less considered, and more of an organic, almost reactionary composition that captures his own musical truth that resulted from these past few years. “With my first solo album, All Your Devotion, I was really searching for who I was as an artist outside of Eskimo Joe,” Temperley explains.“I dug deep into my musical influences such as singer-songwriters from the early ‘70s like Neil Young and Van Morrison. However with this album there was less time to analyse what kind of record I was trying to make, because I was head-down, having to do everything myself. By necessity most of the album was written and recorded in my little studio in Fremantle, but the result is a much more organic rock’n’roll album that relies heavily on storytelling.”

To promote the release of Machines Of Love & Grace, Temperley will be hitting the road for a solo tour in February to play cuts from the record in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth. Venues, show details and info will be announced on Tuesday 25 October at www.kavtemperley.com.au, tickets go on sale Tuesday 25 October at 10AM AEDT from www.kavtemperley.com.au.

Machines Of Love & Grace is out today, October 19.