Kav Temperley reflects on the 20th anniversary of Eskimo Joe’s Black Fingernails Red Wine with a sense of disbelief, noting that although two decades have passed, the album has never really left the band’s orbit. Key songs are still fixtures in their setlists, and the record remains a defining part of their identity.
The band has performed the album in full before, during a disrupted mid-pandemic tour affected by border closures, but this new run will present the album in sequence with all its transitions intact. Temperley notes that performing the songs in album order will be unusual because so many hits-Sarah, Black Fingernails Red Wine, Breaking Up, London Bombs-are front-loaded at the beginning, giving the show an unconventional structure. After the album set, the band plans a break followed by a greatest-hits performance.
Temperley recalls the period after A Song Is The City as a moment of creative reinvention. Despite strong critical success, the band lost most ARIA categories to Jet, whose confident rock presence contrasted sharply with Eskimo Joe’s more formal presentation. The experience pushed Temperley to rethink the band’s aesthetic and persona. He adopted a darker look-black hair, painted nails-and approached the new album with a broader, more stylised emotional lens influenced by Icehouse and INXS. Touring overseas also shifted their songwriting perspective, inspiring them to write from the world looking back toward home.
Recording at The Grove Studios with engineer Matt Lovell gave the project a sense of alignment, and producing the album themselves proved successful when they later won the ARIA for Producer of the Year. Album artwork was created from low-quality candid photos to achieve a foggy, moody aesthetic that matched the record’s tone.
Looking forward, Temperley says new Eskimo Joe music will continue to emerge one single at a time, as the members balance multiple creative projects. The anniversary year will also include a national tour, a Western Australian cabernet sauvignon, a Billy Bones Club clothing collaboration, and the release of professionally captured live footage.
https://www.eskimojoe.net/tours
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