Birds of Tokyo soar to the top after sharing vulnerable side on new album Human Design

They stunned Australia with their Anzac Day live concert on TV. Now the band’s new album has debuted in the top spot on the ARIA music chart with a deeply personal touch.

Birds of Tokyo frontman Ian Kenny saw his band’s orchestral performance for the first time with the rest of Australia during the historic Music From The Homefront concert last weekend.

Kenny was as amazed as everyone else as the television screen filled with the images and sound of him singing Unbreakable as his bandmates played along with more than 40 West Australia Symphony Orchestra members.

The concert was the day after the Australian anthemic rockers released their deeply personal sixth album Human Design, which rose to the top of the download charts and remained there after the broadcast. It debuted at No.1 on the ARIA charts this weekend.

Birds of Tokyo and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra perform for the Music From The Home Front. Picture: Supplied/ Nine.

“It was a bit of a hustle, though it had quite a spectacular result,” Kenny says of the technologically-assisted performance.

“Everybody had to record their parts using iPhones or webcams, whatever they had and then it had to all be pulled together to look and sound like it had been mixed at the same time.

“It was such a spin-out watching that performance with the orchestra thinking in the back of my mind we were supposed to be doing that for real at the Perth Concert Hall that night.”

Birds of Tokyo got ultra personal on Human Design record. Picture: Supplied.

Fans have been waiting four years for a new Birds of Tokyo record. The award-winning rockers have been teasing their new music over the past 18 months, releasing Unbreakable in 2018 as the theme for the Invictus Games, and returning to the top 20 with the ARIA and APRA Awards-nominated single Good Lord last year.

Those songs heralded the emotional rollercoaster of Human Design, written as Kenny struggled to cope with the pain and mental health fallout of his acrimonious marriage breakdown, initially through drinking and then, the far more cathartic process of putting his feelings into lyrical form.

Remember restaurants? Birds will have to wait to celebrate their No.1. Picture: Supplied

His bandmates Adam Spark, Adam Weston, Ian Berney and Glenn Sarangapany gently encouraged Kenny to channel his feelings of anger and grief about the end of his relationship into music.

“I wasn’t really in the best of shape and I didn’t know how much I had in me (musically) or how much I wanted to talk about it all,” he says.

“And then it started feeling like it was helping … it didn’t in the beginning.”

Kenny acknowledges sharing his vulnerability with his bandmates “absolutely brought us closer together.”

“The other guys also had opportunities to talk about where they were at going through their own s … as well,” Kenny says.

“As a guy, I have always kept my s … close to my chest and would never be one to show I was vulnerable or weak … I always tried to bluff everyone that I was OK.

“We talk a lot now, about what’s healthy communication, what’s a healthier picture of the modern man and forgetting all those layers that build up.”

Not being able to play or go to gigs is “killing me”, according to Kenny. Picture: Supplied.

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The frontman is “relieved” to be on the other side of the difficult process of writing and recording Human Design, even as he has to revisit those troubled times to promote the album release.

He has zero care factor about what his ex thinks about the record and has found love again.

“We have what we have now and it is far better than anything I saw coming,” he says.

“I am grateful I get to move on in my life and with the band.”

There remains the vexing uncertainty faced by all Australian musicians as to when we will all be together at a concert again.

Birds of Tokyo shifted their orchestral tour for Human Design to early 2021 and Kenny is optimistic mass gatherings will be allowed by then.

“It’s a nightmare to reschedule concerts with orchestras; hopefully, surely, we will be good by January,” he says.

“It’s killing me not going to gigs. I am always out watching bands, it’s part of my fabric, that social aspect of it, and I am sure everyone is feeling the loss of that social connection.”

The singer and his bandmates plan to tune in to the first ever virtual APRA Music Awards later this month with Birds of Tokyo up for Most Performed Australian Work and Most Performed Alternative Work for Good Lord.

And he likes fellow nominee Guy Sebastian’s idea of dressing up on top and boxers below as the dress code for the awards’ red carpet to be held via social media.

“Yeah, we’re going to frock up and Guy, what a dude, love the boxers below idea.”

For all details of the Symphonic Tour 2021; https://www.birdsoftokyo.com/tour/

Originally published as Birds of Tokyo soar to the top after sharing vulnerable side on new album Human Design