The Waifs

History has shown that some bands just should not mess around with the business of releasing a live album. Fortunately, it has also shown that for other bands, it can be the perfectly appropriate thing to do.

The Waifs, quite happily, fall into the latter category. Theirs is a life of friendship and creativity, lived within hard earned experience over many miles. When Josh Cunningham, Vikki and Donna Simpson met up some 12 years ago, they were already touring around Australia, their lives packed up in guitar cases and living out of the back of a camper van.

And while they cover more miles these days the result is always something you can count on. The Waifs will deliver a live show that will conquer the room and embrace the audience. It's with this thinking that the band have released their long-awaited double live album, A Brief History"

"The Waifs history has very much been a live history," explains guitarist/vocalist Josh Cunningham.

Rather than being a recording of the bands most recent or seemingly most glamorous sounding performance, A Brief History" is an overview of The Waifs performances in all manner of venues, all over the map. This is a band with a deep history and a moving evolution and, as such, a live album from The Waifs is more a living, breathing document than a mere recording from the sound desk. "We've been recording shows since 1997 & we definitely wanted to evoke that sense of the length of time we've been together and the amount of time we've been performing," Josh says. "It's important for that reason to include songs from early on in the piece as well as recently.

"A lot of earlier shows were recorded more crudely, but some of those have the best moments, so we've sneaked a few of those on and made them sound as good as they possibly can. It's pretty much an overview of the whole recorded history of the band, the songs from each of our albums."

Early albums showcase the band as an acoustic trio, but over the years their sound was developed with the addition of Dave Macdonald on the drums and Ben Franz on the bass.

"That's the great thing about making a record like this, being able to show just how the songs have evolved over the years.

While traveling in buses and planes can be a repetitive experience, The Waifs know well that two hourson stage can still make for a headful of surprises. It's the bands ability to be spontaneous with its audience that has always set The Waifs apart.

"Those are the moments that make a live gig special," Josh says. "We're lucky that we got that on a recording, lots of those times things like that happen when you're not rolling the tape. It is important to include those little things, they're just great to capture.

After wrapping up tours in Australia, UK & the US earlier in the year The Waifs took a few months off.

Vikki recently gave birth to a son, Donna toured with US songwriter Ben Weaver, Josh toured with Missy Higgins and the band scored both an APRA Song Of The Year nomination for "Lighthouse" and ARIA Best Independent Release nomination for the single, "Bridal Train".

A Brief History" emerges as a celebration of those moments on stage. As the band happily follow a journey they have no control of, just to see where it goes, their bond with audiences all over the world will continue, as this new live LP so ably depicts.

"We've always had such a great fan base," Josh says. "We've seen a lot of familiar faces over the years - people keep coming back and they're the ones who the album is really for. Hopefully this all captures the spirit of The Waifs performances and the spirit of the crowd that comes to watch."

The new album features two brand new songs, "Papa" and "Willow" as well as a bonus studio version of "Bridal Train".