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As front-man of both pop/rock superstars Birds of Tokyo and progressive outfit Karnivool, Ian Kenny is accustomed to having his life organised well in advance. "The two schedules are fairly flexible, and with a bit of planning it can work quite easily," the singer said. Kenny does admit that although there is some degree of crossover between the two fan-bases, a unique dichotomy has occurred. "I think a lot of people have a bit of a misconception that the Karnivool schedule gets put on hold a lot because of the Birds thing, and it just doesn't," he said. "A bit of both (audience) have come around either way to each band, but by and large, there are Karnivool fans and there are Birds fans. "It's pretty polarised, it's pretty split down the middle." Birds of Tokyo have been writing new material, and recently released the single Good Lord, written by Kenny after an ugly marriage break-up. Meanwhile, Kenny took time out from working on new Karnivool material at Perth's Rada Studios to chat with the Mercury earlier this week. "A year or so ago, we had probably the best part of a record together; by that I mean we had 10 or 12 songs collected that were various degrees of finished," he said of Karnivool. "We saw that, 'okay, we've got a record here'. "Then we kind of hit a wall with it, a bit of a creative wall. "So we put the record down, and this is the first time since a year or so (ago) that we're actually picking the thing up again." The follow-up to 2013's Asymmetry is eagerly anticipated by fans of the ARIA Award-winning Perth rockers. "We're working towards a record, and I think we've got enough for a record," he said. "Though it might make sense, just so we can get things done and happening, maybe break it down into two parts, Part A and Part B, or two EPs that will make up this record we're working on. "(The new material) will be more melodic. It will always be that weird kind of prog that Karnivool does, and then if a few of us in the band have our way, it will be heavy in parts as well." Kenny said there was no clear timetable for when the album would be completed, but they planned to finish demoing three new songs during their current studio stint. "If we get those finished, we'll take them on tour in May," he said. On the touring front, Karnivool was a sleeping giant in 2018, but returned in January with a short run of dates in Western Australia and South Australia, and a headlining slot at the UNIFY Gathering festival in Victoria. This has since been expanded into a national run of shows, dubbed 'The Praxis Tour'. Kenny said the group had often taken material they were still developing and road-tested it within the live environment. "When we were writing for (2005's) Themata, I remember taking out Roquefort to road-test it, and Fear of the Sky in their infancy, when we just didn't have the songs ironed out properly," the vocalist said. "We took them to a stage, and I remember to our credit or not, we used to test songs at the Big Day Out and things like that. "I remember being on one of the stages at the Big Day Out playing Fear of the Sky and going, 'whoa, we really don't know how to finish this song, but f**k it, let's do it'." -Karnivool will perform at the UOW UniBar on June 2. Read more: Mangerton's Booch Bar opens with kombucha gelato and 25 kombucha flavours on tap

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