Vika and Linda

Born of a Tongan mother and Australian father, Vika and Linda grew up in Victoria but maintained close links to the Tongan community.

As children they were always around music and enjoyed singing with the family and also at the Tongan church they attended.
They learned singing and harmonies from their mother. From an early age Vika wanted to be a professional singer .
1987 Linda decided that she wasn't enjoying what she was doing, so she decided to leave University and give music a try. She knew that she could harmonize well with Vika and joined Vika in that band.

During that time Vika also took the opportunity to gig with other bands including John Justin and Thunderwings and The Blue Tomatoes. After that they formed their own band called The Honeymooners.

Their big musical break came in 1988 when Joe Camilleri took the girls into The Black Sorrows as backing singers - this is when the girls profile was raised.

Vika was prominent on a couple of their big singles and their reputation grew. During their time with the Black Sorrows, they also performed on other people's songs - people such as Hunters and Collectors, John Farnham and Archie Roach. Whilst working on the Archie Roach CD, they met and started working with Paul Kelly.

After 6 years with the Black Sorrows they felt it was time to take the next logical step, which was to be lead singers in their own band.

So in 1994, they left the Black Sorrows and took their music to audiences. The reaction to their music was very positive and with that came confidence in what they were doing and they started refining the material for their first CD.

In England, they spent a week at Peter Gabriel's recording studio (near Bath) and recorded a CD called The Mouth Of The River.
The CD is an excellent mix of different styles and sounds and reflects the music that they were performing at their gigs - a few of tracks are recorded live which is hard to believe until you hear the crowd applauding - such is standard of their singing.
They had been invited to England to take part in the World of Recording Week, which was part of a WOMAD event (World Of Music Art and Dance).

They then started work on their next CD, which they were going to co-produce with Diesel and Jeremy Allom. This CD was mostly material that they had written along with collaborators such as Paul Kelly, Tim Finn, Michael Barker (their drummer), and Diesel. The recording of the CD took place in Melbourne, Sydney and Tonga. The title of this new CD was to be either Princess Tabu or Between Two Shores - both tracks on the CD - and Princess Tabu won.

Along with the CD is a bonus live CD (recorded at the Continental) which contains songs from the Vika and Linda, Mouth of the River and Princess Tabu CDs. It was a nice way to give the public acoustic versions of some of their most popular songs.
In 1999 came the release of Two Wings - a CD of spiritual songs. This CD was produced by Paul Kelly and Renee Geyer and is a testament to the effort they had put into their vocal work. The CD is powerful and contains songs penned by such people as Bob Marley, Paul Kelly, Archie Roach and Tim Rogers.

In 2000, they brought out another CD, which is almost a 'best of' collection, and it contains all live tracks recorded at the Continental. They co-produced the CD with their long time friend and guitarist, Jeff Burstin.

In 2002 they bought out the CD entitled 'Love is mighty close' which is more of a country/blues CD. There are 12 tracks all written by Australian artists such as Paul Kelly, Chris Wilson, Cyndi Boste, Rob Snarski and Dan Brodie