A CHANCE meeting and a resounding yes has resulted in Eskimo Joe front man Kavyen Temperley deciding to call the Dunsborough Tavern stage his own this Easter weekend.
After bumping into the Tavern’s owners out and about, they confessed a love of watching the WA born and bred performer back in his hey day.
Temperley said this resulted in them inviting him to take the golden slot.
“What an amazing weekend to perform, it’s mental,” the singer songwriter said.
Without the assistance of his fellow band members, Temperley said he would embark on a solo performance, removing the bells and whistles of the act to strip it bare for all to see.
While Eskimo Joe was a well oiled machine, Temperley said when it was just himself performing, a natural conversation between himself and the audience was gained.
“It’s demystifying, people like that,” Temperley said.
With each member of Eskimo Joe having a healthy hand in fashioning the tunes, Temperley described his input as being the raw idea creator.
He is somewhat of a traditionalist, letting thoughts flow through his pen onto paper.
Self describing his style as a ‘dear diary’ approach, Temperley said there was beauty in tangibility, in having evidence of what you have thought and created.
“I’m all for paper; I had to run out and buy a new notebook just before,” he said.
“I go through pages and pages of writing; I get joy from the piles of my work.”
Through stream of consciousness writing, Temperley said lyrics and ideas come naturally.
“Truly original things come from stream of consciousness writing,” he said.
“I think that’s when people get writers block, when they think too much.”
Temperley’s ‘itchy feet’ have taken his music globally, yet the west coast has always had a grounding effect on him.
“I have a feeling that will never change,” Temperley said.
Those feet carry a message which Temperley said needed to be taken to a live audience, not simply created once and replayed again and again via the internet.
“There’s something about being there and having someone in front of you,” he said.
“There is no way to recreate that.
“What can’t happen on the internet is you, live, singing a show.”
With a live audience comes great responsibility, with Temperley saying there was a need to prove your worth, to engage them beyond chords.
With this in mind and a few secret side projects in the works, Temperley is preparing to enchant the Easter crowds with his no bells and whistles approach to the Dunsborough Tavern, bringing some special guests along for the ride.
Tickets are available for this Sunday’s performance through Moshtix.