Donna Simpson is tired, very tired. The guitarist and vocalist with West Australian folk rockers, The Waifs, has just played three nights in a row in Melbourne, and there have been friends, lots of friends, in attendance. And then there have been after show drinks, maybe a bite to eat, perhaps a few more drinks.

“I’m older now, I can’t party like I used to,” she says. “I could say I’ve really been exerting myself on stage that would sound better. You know, Leonard Cohen is 75 and his shows have been going three hours and 50 minutes. He does have short intermissions though. Our show has been about two-and-a-half hours. It was last night, so it’s pretty long.

“We’ve been playing lots of old stuff by request and there is so much material to choose from …”

It has been 17 years.

“Seventeen fucking years,” Donna exclaims.” You get less for murder.” And laughs. She also says that none of it – the whole rise and rise of the Waifs – was ever planned. It all just kind of happened and they just added the detail.

Born and bred in Albany, WA, the Simpson sisters, Donna and Vikki (now Vikki Thorn), were touring as a duo called Colours when they met guitarist Josh Cunningham while playing in Broome. Everybody got along and a year later, in 1992, the band changed its name to The Waifs a year later and began fulfilling their ambition of touring Australia-wide.

Before you could say roots music, The Waifs had recorded a self-titled debut (1996), Shelter Me (1998), and Sink Or Swim (2000). By then well-respected, it was the release of the London Still EP in 2002 which catapulted them into the limelight. The title track became an anthem and the band’s fourth album, Up All Night, debuted in the Australian charts at #3 in January 2003. By February 2004 it had gone double platinum.

In the meantime, the band had also supported Bob Dylan on his March 2003 Australian tour in March 2003, a high point that is still worth a few good stories per interview, especially as Bob got the sisters to join him on stage.

“Oh Bob, Bob is a whole different thing. Mick Jagger greets you with a smile and is easy to get along with. Bob, he can be very very intimidating.

“When he invited us to play on stage he just came out of the shadows and stared into my eyes and I’m thinking ‘Where’s Vikki? Come here. Vikki, please come here.’

“But he does some extraordinary things, like when we were in Texas this girl arrives at soundcheck with a guitar. And we’re like “what are you doing here?’ She says, ‘Bob Dylan asked me to be here. He rang up and said “I hear you play great guitar, come down and jam …”’ And she was just sweating, she was packing it. Somehow he’d heard about her and that was that.”

Anybody who saw that tour will remember The Waifs being on fire – for show openers they were sublime and superb. And that is really the core of things. Live. Their fans are the dedicated type who drive 200 or 300km just to make a show. And with reason.

The charm and energy they unleash was well captured on 2004’s A Brief History …, a fine live double set. It was followed in 2007 by the excellent Sun, Dirt, Water, and now by a second live album, Live From The Union Of Soul, which captures the best of the five shows that made up this January 2008 short tour around WA with the John Butler Trio.

“When we did that tour we thought we should record some of the gigs so we could listen back and when we did we went ‘ooh this is really good’. And they were really nice recordings of what were great shows – very stripped back, intimate, acoustic. It’s for the Waifs fans. It’s a beautiful album. I’m really impressed by it myself, and I’ve never said that before.

“We could have kept it to ourselves but we really did just want to share it with fans.”

Listening to it, you can almost touch the magic. This is a Waifs album for the puritans, those who like it acoustic and pure. There are some gorgeous moments but most of all it does a capture a band at its prime. Mature, confident and relaxed. It must have been a ‘helluva’ five shows with fellow roots hero Mr Butler and his cohorts.

So what next? Asking a band that doesn’t plan to reveal its latest plans seems rather pointless, however it turns out they have just made a plan. “We made a plan yesterday,” Donna says, rather proudly. “The plan is to all move in with Vikki [who lives in Utah these days; Donna is in Minnesota] – just me and Josh, and write for a few months together. We’ve never done that before. Actually, we’ve already got four really good songs, and we’re feeling really loving and emotional as we’re having all these flashbacks to the past on the current tour. It’s nice being older, playing grown-ups, or at least pretending to be …

“The 17 years together have been fascinating and we’ve just been loaded with luck. It’s just been the most fascinating life to share with my sister. And the family has become involved, as well. Mum runs the office from home and our parents have started traveling since we did. They got to go on the Dylan tour with us. You get to share with them and your friends. That is something special.”

Donna’s friends have been sharing quite closely as it turns out. “If there was one thing I’d change it would probably have been going out last night,” Donna says. Bad one? “I invited all my friends back to the hotel. Five stayed, four the night before. You see, the problem is I’m not touring with my son this time. Vikki has her two kids and her husband in her rooms, but I’m flying solo …”