Fremantle’s Eskimo Joe maybe have only started topping the charts with 2004 album A Song is a City but their story goes back much further. As the legend goes, bassist and vocalist Kavyen Temperley, guitarist Stu MacLeod and drummer Joel Quartermain formed to take part in the 1997 National Campus Band Competition. A few gigs later, they’d taken the national crown and had scored themselves a spot at Brisbane’s Livid festival alongside the likes of Cake, Dinosaur Jr and Veruca Salt.

In 1998, the Eskies released the Sweater EP, which quickly became the novelty hit of the year. The band signed to Modoular in 1999 and returned with with a self-titled EP that took them around the country thanks to singles Ruby Wednesday and Turn Up Your Stereo.

Though Eskimo Joe continued to tour the nation on the strength of just two EPs, it wasn’t until 2001 that the trio finally released their debut long player. Produced by Pulp producer Ed Buller, Girl went gold thanks to hits like Who Sold Her Out, Liar and Planet Earth. Shortly after Girl’s release, the band parted ways with Modular, signing with Festival Mushroom ahead of their second album.

Early in 2004, the band returned to the airwaves with From the Sea, which soon became their biggest selling single. When A Song is a City was released in May that year, it went straight into the ARIA albums chart at number two and went on to go double platinum. Three more singles followed in the form of Smoke, Older Than You and Life is Better With You, while the band received five ARIA Awards nominations for the album. The national tour for A Song is a City also marked a new-look Eskimo Joe, with Quartermain moving onto guitars and former Sleepy Jackson members Paul Keenan (drums) and Dan Bull (keys) joining the fold. Though Bull left to pursue his own solo career, Eskimo Joe continue to tour as a four-piece, while Temperley, MacLeod and Quartermain record as a trio.

Album number three came in 2006 in the form of Black Fingernails, Red Wine. The lead-off single of the same name hit number one on the ARIA digital download chart, while the album, released a month later debuted at number one. Two more singles – Sarah and New York – followed and, as the album eclipsed the achievements of A Song is a City by going triple platinum, Temperley, MacLeod and Quartermain found themselves receiving two ARIA Awards, for Single of the Year and Best Music DVD.