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Rare treat on Rotto

Jebediah. Picture: Blue Murder Studios

Emerging from semi-retirement to play a star-studded homegrown line-up at Hotel Rottnest next month, Jebediah promise tracks from across all five of their albums at what looks like being one heck of a party.

The topnotch line-up also features You Am I, whose frontman Tim Rogers was raised in Applecross and Kalgoorlie, plus Fremantle's Eskimo Joe, and Katy Steele, who's been associated more with New York than her home town in recent times.

"I reckon there will be a couple of songs from each record, there's not really much room for anything else," Jebediah bassist Vanessa Thornton weighs up from her home in Fremantle.

"Greatest hits, golden oldies, all that. We take requests if we can remember how to play the songs."

The chance to catch the Jebs live in concert is a bit of a rare treat these days. The band, who haven't released anything new since Kosciuszko in 2011, are split between WA and Melbourne, where lead singer Kevin Mitchell is busy raising a family and working on a new Bob Evans album.

Thornton and drummer Brett Mitchell are also keeping busy in locally based side project Axe Girl. The three-piece featuring London frontwoman Addison Axe, is set to release a debut album later this year and, if pre-release singles Ghost Romance and Silence are anything to go by, it could be one of the best WA records of 2014.

Thornton's excitement is infectious. "How lucky are me and Brett, playing in two really fun bands." she laughs.

"We've convinced (Axe) that she shouldn't go back to London and play with her band over there, that she should make a record with us here in Perth. We've actually just finished mixing it, so that will be mastered at some point in the near future."

All these side projects don't leave a lot of time for new Jebediah material, and while Thornton is keen to assure us there is another Jebs album coming, she also says chances are that, like the gap between Kosciuszko and 2004's Braxton Hicks, it might take them seven years.

"There will be more Jebs stuff, I just can't imagine it's going to happen in a hurry," she says. "We've all got other projects on the go and we don't spend as much time together these days, so it just takes a bit longer for anything to happen. But when it does happen it's really good."

'Greatest hits, golden oldies,

all that. We take requests if we can remember how to play the songs.'