Birds of Tokyo

Songs like “Good Lord”, “Two Of Us”, “Plans”, “Lanterns”, “Brace” and “I’d Go With You Anywhere” have all been top 10 airplay hits and have lead to appearances at every major festival in this country including Falls, Splendour In The Grass and Groovin’ The Moo, as well as headlining slots at the AFL Grand Final and NRL’s flagship State of Origin game.

Over the years the band has had eleven separate songs make Triple J’s “Hottest 100”. Their breakthrough hit “Plans” ranked #4 on the 2010 countdown. It was taken from Birds of Tokyo’s self-titled third studio album, which went double platinum and spent over eight months in the ARIA top 20. The eponymous release received the ARIA Award for Best Rock Album.

Subsequent records have helped the band carve a singular career for more than a decade, including 2012’s March Fires, which debuted at #1 on the ARIA Album Chart and produced triple-platinum radio hit “Lanterns”, their gold-certified EP Anchor (2015) and 2016’s top #3 album BRACE.

More than seventy Birds of Tokyo songs have featured on Triple J, making them one of the station’s three most played artists of this millennium. The band are also the only artist in history to win “Rock Work Of The Year” on five separate occasions at the APRA Awards.

In the last two years the band has enjoyed a run of four hit singles. This new material shares a strong lyrical thread because it was all largely inspired by a tumultuous period in the personal life of frontman Ian Kenny. He dealt with his marriage breakup directly in the radio smash “The Greatest Mistakes” plus the double platinum certified single “Good Lord”. The anthemic “Unbreakable” provided a different perspective on the same dire situation while this year’s celebratory “Two Of Us” ushered in the next chapter of his story. In May 2020 Birds of Tokyo bundled all these songs plus seven more onto a new album called Human Design, which debuted at #1 on the ARIA Album Chart.

Birds of Tokyo capped off 2020 by releasing Summer anthem “Weekend” ahead of a run of festival shows in the band’s home state of WA. Early next year the band will also play a handful of special concerts with four of Australia’s most prestigious Symphony Orchestras. Each night the five piece will be joined by over 50 of the country’s best classical musicians for an evening that showcases brand new music as well as reinterpretations of some signature Birds of Tokyo classics.