Kin lapping up week in Perth
Punters who snap up tickets to the Perth leg of The Kin's Australian tour should prepare themselves for a very different kind of live performance.
For one thing, the US-based band, headed up by Adelaide-raised brothers Isaac and Thorald Koren, say they don't believe in rock-star airs and like to hug as many of their fans at their gigs as possible.
For another, they have a drummer who uses his fingers rather than sticks - a musician called Shakerleg who they met in the New York subway.
"Come if you want to see someone hurting themselves while playing music, which is not a usual combination," Shakerleg told Access All Areas.
"It is the act of actually injuring yourself on stage - there is a possibility that I may break some fingers at every show."
It's the three-piece's unique style of performance, paired with their penchant for guerilla-style "musical robberies" in public spaces, that helped them land a support spot for Pink on her huge Australian arena tour last year.
Currently on the road for their Thick as Thieves national tour, the men arrived in Perth on Sunday to perform at the closing night of Telethon, which Thorald said blew the band away because they had no idea what to expect.
"It was great to find ourselves right in the middle of it," he said. "We love opening things and we opened the ending, which was really fun."
While the local charity weekend was something new to the trio, Isaac has a particularly strong connection to WA - he is married to writer and former model Sophie Ward, the sister of supermodel Gemma Ward.
As in previous trips here, the men are again staying with the Ward family and Isaac said it was particularly convenient considering his father-in-law Gary was a doctor.
"When you are on the road you don't get to see GPs that know what they are doing so to actually stay with him . . . he takes our blood and he actually fixed Shakerleg's hands to some extent," he said.
"Just talking to him is very inspiring."
Perth has inspired the musicians in another way during their week-long
visit. They were initially going to treat the down time as a holiday but were instead struck with a wave of ideas for their next album, which they are set to record when they return to the US.
"We kind of took a while to come up with it but it hit us yesterday in Perth," Isaac explained.
"We are writing all these songs and we suddenly have a direction in our mind."
