Most of us have childhood memories of the days we played ‘Rockstar’ with friends. My friends and I liked microphones with cords, so rather than a hairbrush, we’d plug an extension lead into the wall and sing into that. It never occurred to us we might get an electric shock if we slobbered over it too much. Andrew Guirguis, of Kid Confucius, has memories just as interesting. "My next door neighbour and I, when we were about four years old, tried to start a band … I think we managed to construct a drum kit out of kitchen stools from his house and my house and a few pots and pans. Then we wrote some lyrics on a piece of paper and I recorded us on my toy Fisher Price home recording kit."

Guiguis has come a long way since then; the band Kid Confucius performing many festivals and earning four star reviews from publications like Rolling Stone, who described 2008 album The Let Go as "one of the standout local releases of the year." Now set for a long awaited tour of Australia’s east coast, the kids have produced a special edition of The Let Go with bonus material. "You buy the album in stores, namely JB Hi-Fi stores, and when you get the album, it gives you a unique URL so you can download the tracks … and then a remix by Andy Bull is exclusive to iTunes. It’s all very complicated, but at the end of the day, there’s bonus stuff there if you want it."

What exactly are some of these bonus items fans can expect?

"The song Daydreaming was meant to be on the album originally, but at the last minute, we thought it didn’t really fit," explains Guirguis. "We always liked it, so when there was talk of doing a special tour edition, we thought we’d use this chance to get Daydreaming out there once and for all. We didn’t actually ever finish it. It’s just been packaged up as it was, which is cool for us, just to show people that there is a process that goes into making an album. Not everything gets finished. Yeah, there’s the bonus track, a couple of instrumentals, and a remix by Andy Bull – he remixed a song off the record called Come & Go – and the three videos from the singles we made from this album. We produced them ourselves, so we’re really proud."

Listening to the album, some songs resemble classic rock, but others like Morning J are very obviously soul-inspired. It’s unusual to hear both styles coming from the one band. "We listen to a lot of rock and old school soul," says Guiguis. "Otis Redding and Stevie Wonder, so I think the album and the sound is just a reflection the fact we’re into rock and we’re into soul, and the fact that we’re a rock/soul band is pretty much a product of what we enjoy listening too."

KID CONFUCIUS play The Troubadour on Saturday Sep 19. The special edition of THE LET GO is out now through Brighton Blvd Records.

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