It's been three years since Tim Freedman and his ARIA Award-winning band The Whitlams went on hiatus. Now back together and ready to make music, the lads are touring the country and returning to Perth to join forces for the third time with The West Australian Symphony Orchestra, performing all the hits from across their 21-year career plus a few surprises. “We've done Eternal Nightcap, which we had arranged for orchestra just three years ago and we haven't done that in Perth so we've got plenty of new material from about eight songs to the ones we played with the orchestra last time. And we've got so many songs arranged now we can basically not do the ones that don't work.”

Having gone on hiatus for a number of reasons, Freedman found time to work on a solo album, 2011's Australian Idle, while other members like drummer Terepai Richmond toured with other artists around the country. “Well we had a break for three years just to keep things fresh,” Freedman admits. “I actually meant for it to be four years but a fellow thought that an orchestral show would be a nice big bang way of coming back and I'm glad he had the idea because it's gone really well. We never had a farewell tour; I always intended to play again and I just said to the band, 'Look I'll call you when something interesting comes up in a few years'. You know, we don't like to sit down and have contractual negotiations; it's like, 'Turn up if you want' and after a while you can just trust each other in that respect, which is quite a good thing. Terepai was off with Missy Higgins and Guy Sebastian for a while so you know, that's life, and they had bigger tours than I could offer so I got a deputy in for a little while. But he's free at the moment so I made sure he was free for these shows so the A-Team could do them because he's a big part of the feel. When other guys come in, I just get them to copy what he does and, of course, nobody does what he does like he does.”

Along with Richmond and the “A-Team”, Freedman commissioned award-winning conductor Benjamin Northey to lead the orchestras in each state as well as create new unique arrangements of Up Against The Wall and Charlie No.1 from their breakthrough third album, Eternal Nightcap. “We've always got top people doing it and I've nearly always been pleasantly surprised by what they come up with. They don't just copy what's on the record, they also add lots of melodies and crescendos and textures so it's good to just let them do what they do well. My favourite's Up Against The Wall, which Benjamin arranged and it sounds a bit like a cross between Nelson Riddle and Bernard Herrmann, who scored all of Alfred Hitchcock's movies. It's quite sinister and has lots of punchy brass. Then there's a lovely new arrangement by Jamie Messenger, who did an arrangement of Rolf Harris's Two Little Boys for me, and that's just piano and orchestra. I've completely redone the music so it's more like a poignant ballad now than Rolf's version.”

Freedman says the new arrangements, coupled with the time away from the band, have reinvigorated the songs for him. “I certainly rediscover the songs but if they're that old I don't like to do them for too long. Musicians always like to do their new work but Ben doing Charlie No. 1 the way he has, has given it a new lease on life and I probably won't play it in my solo shows for a while – maybe just do the old stuff as sparingly as possible. What's good about not playing for two years is when you start playing the songs again, you're hearing them like an audience would hear them because most of the audience wouldn't have heard the songs in three or four years when they come and see you play. And so you just imagine what energy's being conveyed to the audience who haven't heard it for four years and you remind yourself of how they sound after that amount of time and so having a break has been very useful in that respect.”

The group has performed shows like these twice before, presenting a short orchestral tour across the country in late 2007 and once more with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2009 to celebrate the 12th anniversary of Eternal Nightcap. Freedman says growing up he had much admiration for artists that utilised orchestral music in their songs. “I love Nelson Riddle's arrangement of Sinatra and of course George Martin's arrangement of The Beatles. I also really liked the string arrangements in early Elton John albums, nice and thick sort of unison string lines.”

When it comes to the performances themselves though, Freedman does say it's a different way of playing for himself. “I like the band to get raucous whereas we have to control that with the orchestra. We have to play quite particularly and quite less because the whole point of the concert is to hear the orchestra, so sometimes I won't even play the piano for a song where as I would never do that with a four-piece.”

Freedman can also confirm the band is set to start writing and recording music together again: “Yes we are but I haven't written anything yet.” While Freedman doesn't go into any more detail, at least fans will get a chance to hear some of this band's greatest hits with this new concert as well as prepare for a new chapter in the band and Freedman's career.