The Waifs release Ironbark for 25th anniversary

The band will release its eighth studio offering Ironbark on February 24 - a 25-song double album split across two halves; a 14-track record and an 11-track record. 

Speaking ahead of the band’s upcoming visit to Tasmania in March, guitarist and vocalist Josh Cunningham said the symbolic decision to release a track for each year had developed organically.

“It wasn’t like we were just making up the numbers to get to 25, we actually had to leave some songs off that we didn't really want to,” Cunningham said. 

“When we realised we were going to have that many songs we thought it should be kept at 25 because thats a nice tie-in with the occasion.”

Having hit the road “relentlessly” at the beginning of their career, the band has toured more sparingly in recent years.

In an effort to keep the Ironbark recording sessions chilled out, the band opted to record from the semi-constructed kitchen of Cunningham’s New South Wales home instead of an established studio.

Cunningham said the band had successfully managed to keep background kitchen noise to a minimum during the recording process. 

“The kitchen isn’t finished so we set up a gas cooker outside on the verandah and that’s where all the food prep was happening,” Cunningham said. 

“Most of the time everyone was recording anyway so it wasn’t too much of an issue, but there were times when we had to say ‘ok we're recording, be quiet now’.”

Cunningham said the album’s title track explored people’s ability to endure difficult circumstances.

“There's a lot of songs on the album that reference this idea, Ironbark is about endurance and survival.

“It’s a bit of a metaphor for people, and the importance of not being overwhelmed but just persevering and surviving and still being beautiful, so that's a really nice theme and it’s suggested in quite a few of the tracks.”

The Waifs will perform at Hobart’s Odeon Theatre on March 25 and at Devonport’s Don Centre on March 26.