Kirsten Verwoord & The All Night Riders

With a crack new band behind her, KIRSTEN VERWOORD tells NICK ARGYRIOU that practice makes perfect.
Kirsten Verwoord is one intriguing character. Hailing from Perth, where she wrote for a music paper and presented a radio show since 2003 on RTRfm, Verwoord started writing songs with musical partner and right-hand-man, Alex Archer of the Kill Devil Hills. But when he split to work with Felicity Groom, Verwoord felt betrayed, feeling like Archer had left her for another woman.

“It felt like being cheated on from a ten-year marriage… I love her and I think she’s great, but it’s how I felt,” she says. Packing her bags for Melbourne in 2007 for a fresh musical start, Verwoord spent time restoring old furniture in a Richmond warehouse before being befriended by the lads from the Cosmic Psychos. “I made friends with them around town and ended up with a five- or six-month residency playing Friday nights at the Cherry Bar. I built my relationships from there,” she admits.
Taking Archer’s wise advice with her to Melbourne, Verwoord set out to right a few wrongs in both her playing style and personality. “Alex’s advice was that I needed to work on confidence in my own ability to execute songs that I write, and play them like I really mean them, so he said ‘Go play 101 shows and then come back to me’ – so I did and now I’ve gone onto this new line-up,” she tells.
Continuing to build her friendship group by drinking at pubs and bars that played the sort of music she liked, Verwoord was introduced to Jimmy Stewart (Clinkerfield) by Archer and went and watched his shows, before finding her way into the Silver City Highway lair through their leader Fergus McAlpin. “I was checking out their drummer Simon Edwards’ style and knew he was who would drum for me… so we spent hours talking about music and our love for Indian food and then we got Adam Afiff (Silver City Highway’s bass player) to play with us,” explains Verwoord.
With go-to-man guitarist Damian Hooper jumping on board, alongside Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Silver City Highway viola player Jason Bunn, Verwoord would assemble a cracker band that also consisted of fellow Silver City Highwayman, pedal steel gun Seamus O’Sullivan. Throw Kirri Buchler on violin and the Night Terrors’ Miles Brown on theremin into the mix to help build atmosphere around Verwoord’s smokey noir vocals, and her rhythm guitar shuffle and grind, and you get The All Night Riders – Chapter Two.
Having recorded demos in Afiff’s studio at RMIT, to rehearsal spaces in Collingwood, the very fine ‘rough cuts’ can be found on the band’s MySpace. Hoping to record their debut album in August, Verwoord has also applied for one of the 550 spots at CMJ 2010 in New York. After attending in 2009 where she spent time networking and “eating apple pies as big as [her] head and partying at a CMJ kick-on at John Mayer’s house”, this year Verwoord wishing to combine a little pleasure with business and stamp the All Night Riders’ sound in the biggest smoke of all.
But, it’s the little things that give Verwoord the most pleasure. “Sime and I have been putting together cheese and wine gift bags for soloists who come and play with us, or those who support us, to show our appreciation… there’s a lot of love in music and the art that we do and we want to show that,” she explains.

NICK ARGYRIOU - Inpress published 16/6/2010

With a crack new band behind her, KIRSTEN VERWOORD tells NICK ARGYRIOU that practice makes perfect.
Kirsten Verwoord is one intriguing character. Hailing from Perth, where she wrote for a music paper and presented a radio show since 2003 on RTRfm, Verwoord started writing songs with musical partner and right-hand-man, Alex Archer of the Kill Devil Hills. But when he split to work with Felicity Groom, Verwoord felt betrayed, feeling like Archer had left her for another woman.

“It felt like being cheated on from a ten-year marriage… I love her and I think she’s great, but it’s how I felt,” she says. Packing her bags for Melbourne in 2007 for a fresh musical start, Verwoord spent time restoring old furniture in a Richmond warehouse before being befriended by the lads from the Cosmic Psychos. “I made friends with them around town and ended up with a five- or six-month residency playing Friday nights at the Cherry Bar. I built my relationships from there,” she admits.
Taking Archer’s wise advice with her to Melbourne, Verwoord set out to right a few wrongs in both her playing style and personality. “Alex’s advice was that I needed to work on confidence in my own ability to execute songs that I write, and play them like I really mean them, so he said ‘Go play 101 shows and then come back to me’ – so I did and now I’ve gone onto this new line-up,” she tells.
Continuing to build her friendship group by drinking at pubs and bars that played the sort of music she liked, Verwoord was introduced to Jimmy Stewart (Clinkerfield) by Archer and went and watched his shows, before finding her way into the Silver City Highway lair through their leader Fergus McAlpin. “I was checking out their drummer Simon Edwards’ style and knew he was who would drum for me… so we spent hours talking about music and our love for Indian food and then we got Adam Afiff (Silver City Highway’s bass player) to play with us,” explains Verwoord.
With go-to-man guitarist Damian Hooper jumping on board, alongside Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Silver City Highway viola player Jason Bunn, Verwoord would assemble a cracker band that also consisted of fellow Silver City Highwayman, pedal steel gun Seamus O’Sullivan. Throw Kirri Buchler on violin and the Night Terrors’ Miles Brown on theremin into the mix to help build atmosphere around Verwoord’s smokey noir vocals, and her rhythm guitar shuffle and grind, and you get The All Night Riders – Chapter Two.
Having recorded demos in Afiff’s studio at RMIT, to rehearsal spaces in Collingwood, the very fine ‘rough cuts’ can be found on the band’s MySpace. Hoping to record their debut album in August, Verwoord has also applied for one of the 550 spots at CMJ 2010 in New York. After attending in 2009 where she spent time networking and “eating apple pies as big as [her] head and partying at a CMJ kick-on at John Mayer’s house”, this year Verwoord says she hopes to rekindle a long-term on-and-off (mostly off) relationship with her “lovely” US producer partner in New York, wishing to combine a little pleasure with business and stamp the All Night Riders’ sound in the biggest smoke of all.
But, it’s the little things that give Verwoord the most pleasure. “Sime and I have been putting together cheese and wine gift bags for soloists who come and play with us, or those who support us, to show our appreciation… there’s a lot of love in music and the art that we do and we want to show that,” she explains.

NICK ARGYRIOU - Inpress published 16/6/2010

With a crack new band behind her, KIRSTEN VERWOORD tells NICK ARGYRIOU that practice makes perfect.
Kirsten Verwoord is one intriguing character. Hailing from Perth, where she wrote for a music paper and presented a radio show since 2003 on RTRfm, Verwoord started writing songs with musical partner and right-hand-man, Alex Archer of the Kill Devil Hills. But when he split to work with Felicity Groom, Verwoord felt betrayed, feeling like Archer had left her for another woman.

“It felt like being cheated on from a ten-year marriage… I love her and I think she’s great, but it’s how I felt,” she says. Packing her bags for Melbourne in 2007 for a fresh musical start, Verwoord spent time restoring old furniture in a Richmond warehouse before being befriended by the lads from the Cosmic Psychos. “I made friends with them around town and ended up with a five- or six-month residency playing Friday nights at the Cherry Bar. I built my relationships from there,” she admits.
Taking Archer’s wise advice with her to Melbourne, Verwoord set out to right a few wrongs in both her playing style and personality. “Alex’s advice was that I needed to work on confidence in my own ability to execute songs that I write, and play them like I really mean them, so he said ‘Go play 101 shows and then come back to me’ – so I did and now I’ve gone onto this new line-up,” she tells.
Continuing to build her friendship group by drinking at pubs and bars that played the sort of music she liked, Verwoord was introduced to Jimmy Stewart (Clinkerfield) by Archer and went and watched his shows, before finding her way into the Silver City Highway lair through their leader Fergus McAlpin. “I was checking out their drummer Simon Edwards’ style and knew he was who would drum for me… so we spent hours talking about music and our love for Indian food and then we got Adam Afiff (Silver City Highway’s bass player) to play with us,” explains Verwoord.
With go-to-man guitarist Damian Hooper jumping on board, alongside Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Silver City Highway viola player Jason Bunn, Verwoord would assemble a cracker band that also consisted of fellow Silver City Highwayman, pedal steel gun Seamus O’Sullivan. Throw Kirri Buchler on violin and the Night Terrors’ Miles Brown on theremin into the mix to help build atmosphere around Verwoord’s smokey noir vocals, and her rhythm guitar shuffle and grind, and you get The All Night Riders – Chapter Two.
Having recorded demos in Afiff’s studio at RMIT, to rehearsal spaces in Collingwood, the very fine ‘rough cuts’ can be found on the band’s MySpace. Hoping to record their debut album in August, Verwoord has also applied for one of the 550 spots at CMJ 2010 in New York. After attending in 2009 where she spent time networking and “eating apple pies as big as [her] head and partying at a CMJ kick-on at John Mayer’s house”, this year Verwoord says she hopes to rekindle a long-term on-and-off (mostly off) relationship with her “lovely” US producer partner in New York, wishing to combine a little pleasure with business and stamp the All Night Riders’ sound in the biggest smoke of all.
But, it’s the little things that give Verwoord the most pleasure. “Sime and I have been putting together cheese and wine gift bags for soloists who come and play with us, or those who support us, to show our appreciation… there’s a lot of love in music and the art that we do and we want to show that,” she explains.

NICK ARGYRIOU - Inpress published 16/6/2010