Kav Temperley channels the X-Press Factor

As the frontman, bassist, and songwriter of legendary rock band Eskimo Joe, Kav Temperley has fostered a reputation as one of Australia’s most celebrated musicians, with three ARIA chart-topping albums, eight ARIA Awards and a feature in triple j’s Hottest 100 an impressive 11 times. Kav Temperley is performing at the Rewind – 40 Years of X-Press Celebration at the Astor Theatre on Wednesday, March 18, alongside Katy Steele, Dave Warner, Carla Geneve, Boox Kid, Gyroscope, Donna Simpson, Cal Kramer, Dave Hole and Dom Mariani, with tickets on sale now. BOB GORDON chatted with Kav Temperley about celebrating twenty years of Black Fingernails Red Wine, his long-standing X-Press connection, and the upcoming 40 Years of X-Press Magazine gig. 

I was just looking on the Eskimo Joe Facebook page and saw some pre-show vocal warm-up videos at a festival in Torquay. Has it been a nice summer playing those sorts of things?

It’s been an interesting one because we’re getting ready for twenty years of Black Fingernails Red Wine this year. So we’ve been very, very lucky in the last year or two to be playing every festival that will have us. But in the last six or eight months, we’ve been trying to stay out of the cities a little bit because we want to do some big city shows for that thing. So these are those shows—especially the ones where I posted the backstage warm-ups—like the beginning of the summer festival season. Which takes us into this kind of epic year of celebrating Black Fingernails Red Wine, which is exciting and fun.

It’s always interesting to revisit these things, because as soon as you mention to anyone our way of celebrating twenty years of Black Fingernails, Red Wine this year, they’re like, “Twenty years!”—they’re really surprised. And, for me, I’m always like, “Well, I agree; I was there. I can’t believe it was twenty years ago either.”

But going back even further, looking back at first starting out in Perth, having that X-Press connection. X-Press posted that front cover with us in the sweater outfits; my memory of that time was that it was such a big deal to get on the front cover of X-Press. There were these milestones; you would sell out the Grosvenor Hotel front bar or back room, if you were lucky, and get the front cover of X-Press. That was considered going gold in Perth.

I remember the Eskimo Joe/X-Press connection started with your previous band, Freud’s Pillow, in about 1996. The first time I saw Freud’s Pillow was at UWA Tavern for a campus band competition heat on a Friday afternoon.

Sounds about right!

I remember Joel Quartermain was wearing a You Am I t-shirt.

Which was very much against the idea that we had at the time. I mean, maybe there was hope for the future in Joel’s You Am I t-shirt, but Freud’s Pillow essentially existed in this dark period of music where funk and metal came together for a little while.

Mostly in Freo…

Yes, mostly in Freo. Luckily, there were some good ideas floating around in that You Am I shirt, so we survived.

I remember when you came in for the Freud’s Pillow EP launch interview, and a good portion of it near the end was like, “What are you doing later this afternoon? Our other band called Eskimo Joe is playing at the campus bands heat at UWA.” So that was probably July, and then by the end of August, you’d won that whole competition.

Yeah, our career had truly begun.

This brand-new band, as it was, just went off on this different trajectory, and because X-Press had so many pages at the time, we were able to cover all the sorts of shifts and accomplishments—the early successes you had, the evolution of what your music was between even the first EP and the second, and then when you were steering around to what your songwriting visions actually were.

I mean, with Eskies, we didn’t really land in that place that I was totally comfortable with until we made our first album, Girl. It’s interesting; you talk about the Freud’s Pillow and Eskimo Joe thing—Eskimo Joe almost started as a reaction because I wanted to be in a band where the songs I wrote in my bedroom were the songs I played on stage, as opposed to this kind of other thing—whatever Freud’s Pillow was—but we didn’t really get there until we made that first record; we almost could have changed our name at that point in time.

And we got to do another front cover of X-Press, which was exciting. I think about the press-savvy gentleman that I’ve become these days because I’ve done so many interviews. I understand the format a little bit, and I feel like the world is a little bit more educated in how to do these things these days; we’re just a bit more exposed and a bit more professional.

But I was reading that very first interview that we did with X-Press, and it’s so funny. We were just such little brats with zero care or clue that this information might just hang around forever. When X-Press posted that first interview on Facebook the other week, Joel called me and was laughing, “Have you read that again?” And now… we’re polished professionals.

Looking back, there was sort of a ‘big three’ back then. Ammonia kind of broke through, then Jebediah and Eskimo Joe, although that’s probably a little simplistic.

I think the thing that was significant about the Perth music scene in that exact little moment is that it was this kind of opening up of the state for the first time. We kind of lived in this walled community for a long time. And the idea that you would get a song on triple j or tour anywhere outside Perth or even Fremantle was unheard of.

But then Ammonia came through and broke open a bit, and then Jebediah broke it open a bit more. And then we got to do that as well. And then John Butler, not long after, it just kind of started to open up. It was like we could finally think outside of Perth for the first time, but it also goes to show how important and what a big deal X-Press was at that point in time as well because that was our whole entire world.

If you wanted to know anything that was going on, it had to be in X-Press. So you’d get X-Press every week, and you’d look at all the pages to find out what was going on because there was nothing outside of this tiny community that we lived in. It had an insularity about it that was very interesting.

The thing I recall and love is that bands like you guys, Ammonia, Jebediah and John Butler would initially come in with a handwritten ‘press release’ and your first band photos taken in the backyard by a friend who had a camera, and then over time we watched as you released albums, toured nationally and beyond. Things opened up and were rising, and you all rose to those occasions.

Yeah, that’s kind of what’s so amazing about it: give people half a chance, and they’ll rise to that occasion. Which was so much a part of that story.

So you’ll be performing at the Astor Theatre for the X-Press 40th Anniversary book launch. You’ve played there…

Gosh, numerous times! I think we even played one of the very first shows with Eskies when the Astor first opened for live bands. It’s a great venue.

It’ll be magical once again to get onstage and have a bit of a play, and there are also some amazing other artists that I love.

Kav Temperley performs at Rewind – 40 Years of X-Press Celebration at the Astor Theatre on Wednesday, March 18, 2026. Tickets are on sale now from ticketek.com.au