The future of the much-loved Aussie folk rock band The Waifs looks uncertain with the group living on opposite sides of the world.
With sisters Vikki Thorn and Donna Simpson based in the US and guitarist Josh Cunningham living in Australia, Thorn says: "I've found the geographical separation of the band is starting to effect our creativity as a band.
"Coming together takes a lot of logistical organisation and time and I'm interested to see how we're going to overcome that in order to create music together.
"I think the future is a little uncertain. There's a lot of factors we've got to work out in order to keep doing it."
The Waifs, which formed in 1992 in Western Australia and built up a dedicated following thanks to exhaustive touring, have released five studio albums and won four ARIA Awards.
Thorn, Simpson and Cunningham's diverging musical styles were evident on their 2007 album, SunDirtWater.
Thorn said the group had a couple of new tracks and enough unreleased songs in their back catalogue for another album, but the different songwriting styles were more evident than ever.
The band was not breaking up, she said, it was just re-examining what was possible, as she and Simpson had young children.
"We love doing what we're doing and there's no animosity, we've now got to fit it into our lives," she said.
"We're never going to be a band anymore that puts out an album a year, that's not going to happen.
"But if we come across songs and we feel ready it might be once every four or five years that we'll come out with an album."
Thorn also said she was considering a solo career for the first time.
The Waifs are heading out on a national tour later this month, starting in Darwin and travelling around the country until March.
They are offering fans the chance to determine the set list in each city by voting for the songs they want to hear.
"It's really something just for the fans," Thorn said.
"Our fan base have been very loyal over the years and I think they've always made it clear that our most popular songs are the ones off the first three albums, which we felt we'd personally outgrown and weren't able to perform anymore because we were embarrassed or we just didn't connect with those songs anymore."
Topping the list of most requested songs is Haircut, which Simpson wrote years ago when a boyfriend left her.
"It's the songs that we really hate playing that they want to hear the most," Thorn laughed.
"Like, Haircut is a song Donna wrote in her early 20s and she mentions masturbating and she's really, really embarrassed about that, and I think it's hilarious."
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