We Two Thieves
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We Two Thieves

If it weren’t for a chance meeting at Nannup music festival in Western Australia, where Mama Kin (aka Danielle Caruana) and Emily Lubitz of Tin Pan Orange were both performing, it’s unlikely We Two Thieves would have ever happened.
“We just started having a jam on our veranda and the Tinpan Orange crew came over and we just had a night of whiskey and songs and it was so much fun,” Danielle says.
“I remember at the end of the night when they left, saying to my husband, ‘Oh I want to be her friend!’”
Before this point, Danielle hadn’t heard any tunes from the folk band, and on receiving an album at that same festival the release earned a spot on her repeat list.
“They gave me their new CD at the Nannup festival and it became the soundtrack of a camping trick we had after that, so it all sort of happened backwards for us,” she says.
The respect for each other quickly grew and both Danielle and Emily managed to take on any opportunity together that they could. Teaming with Dave Mann, who forms the instrumental backbone of the band, a new side project was born in We Two Thieves.
Much like their beginnings, the process of recording their new album, , was just as natural. Singing at a microphone, the duo, featuring a very pregnant Emily, harmonised to perfection and created the sounds that you hear in the nine track release.
“We recorded the tracks around a specific microphone and…unlike other recordings where you can do a few takes and stitch together one that sounds the amazing, all of us had to perform a perfect take all the way through the song for it to work,” she says.
“The pressure is really high so the presence has to be really on, and it was an amazing experience. The ability to be joking, hanging out and complete dickheads together and then to switch it on for the song is incredible.”
When asked if Danielle felt any pressure with the release, given their success independently, she states that in fact there is barely any, as We Two Thieves isn’t their main project.
“It’s our side project for both of us, it’s not like we have everything hinged on it. So there’s this degree of not being too attached to it that makes it far more enjoyable,” Danielle says.
While it might be different from their separate ventures, Mama Kin and Tin Pan Orange, the love is still there for what the two do together. Danielle also shares a bit of love for Port Fairy folk festival, which We Two Thieves are set to play early next year.
“It couldn’t be more perfect,” she says.
“I see Port Fairy as a big theatre festival where you go and get to experience acts in a festival setting but in the same way that you would in a theatre. It’s one of my favourite places to perform because of that feeling of the absolute presence of the audience, so you’re not bound to keep the party pumping.”
When&Where: Port Fairy Folk Festival – March 6-9
By Amanda Sherring