Speaker 1: Always be to always when you're weaving for them, mad
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2: Just now, Like that's just a little bit of the
Speaker 2: debut single from singer songwriter Tom Busby, Waiting for Tomorrow,
Speaker 2: from his first solo album, Rockampton Hangover, and I got
Speaker 2: Tom Busby on the line.
Speaker 3: Good Hey Tom, hey Bell, how are you made good?
Speaker 4: Mate?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 4: You recorded that song in Texas with the American singer
Speaker 4: songwriter Ben Couella. Tell us about.
Speaker 3: That, Yeah, oh mate, it was a time of our lives. Look,
Speaker 3: it's an album. I'd be wanting to do it for
Speaker 3: a long time. My wife's actually Texan, she's been over
Speaker 3: here for almost now, and we've never been able to
Speaker 3: take kid's back. There's always been an excuse. We've got
Speaker 3: four kids and so they haven't met the grandparents and
Speaker 3: their cousins, and we've just never been able to. Yeah,
Speaker 3: either afford it or the time wasn't right. It was
Speaker 3: too busy with Busby Maru and I went and wrote
Speaker 3: with Ben Kwala a need a hero of mine, and
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, you know, the chemistry was
Speaker 3: just instant, and you know it was just one of
Speaker 3: those one of those opportunities I just couldn't knock, but
Speaker 3: I didn't know how to do it because I really
Speaker 3: just didn't want to go away from the family again
Speaker 3: for too long. And came home and told my wife
Speaker 3: and she's like, nah, we were doing this. I know.
Speaker 3: We were always waiting for tomorrow. We're always making excuses,
Speaker 3: and so we packed up kids, pulled them out of school.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what was going to happen. And we
Speaker 3: just went over there for two months and got to
Speaker 3: not only did we record the album with my with
Speaker 3: my hero songwriting hero, and you know, in awesome Texas
Speaker 3: outside of Austin, we got to you know, hanging out
Speaker 3: with my wife's family and they're from a Pakistani background,
Speaker 3: and got to really immerse our kids into that culture
Speaker 3: and grandparents and the cousins. It was really healing for
Speaker 3: my wife and it was really beautiful many more ways
Speaker 3: than just music.
Speaker 4: I can hear. Mate. You're Queensland born and bred, aren't you.
Speaker 4: And where did you get your interest in music? Where
Speaker 4: did that come from?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: From a massive family, a big family, very very musical.
Speaker 3: I'm the youngest of eight kids. Yeah, Mum and dad
Speaker 3: have thirty thirty four grandchildren, including my kids, and it
Speaker 3: is all about music. Christmas, you know, is just just
Speaker 3: so much happiness, guitars, PI and a singing stealing microphones
Speaker 3: and I got to watch my brothers and sisters fight
Speaker 3: it off for the limelight and I waited my time, and.
Speaker 4: So he what was your big break?
Speaker 3: Look a number of things. But initially we recorded our
Speaker 3: album in rock Hampton on our own. Was fantastic. We
Speaker 3: had no idea what we were doing. We've got a
Speaker 3: grant and you know that you can even hear the
Speaker 3: songs and there's no choruses. There's something really naive about it.
Speaker 3: But it's really beautiful looking back. And somehow, somehow, some
Speaker 3: someone passed of them on to a guy named Bruce
Speaker 3: Elder who was a very important music journalist for the
Speaker 3: Sydney Morning Herald, and he wrote the most amazing review,
Speaker 3: go four and a half stars out of five.
Speaker 6: So how would you describe your style, well, Busby Maru, Well,
Speaker 6: I suppose you know, acoustic folkn spied pop. But I'm
Speaker 6: going to come out and say that my solo album
Speaker 6: is down down home country. Like at the end of
Speaker 6: the day, it's country. It's a country album.
Speaker 4: And Busby Maru tell us about them. They've had gold
Speaker 4: and platinum awards, haven't they records?
Speaker 3: And yeah, so that's that's my that's my duo. That's
Speaker 3: with my best smart Jeremy Maru, who's Torris right Islander,
Speaker 3: and he's just one of the most talented human beings ever.
Speaker 3: And we've we've had the most craziest journey. We didn't
Speaker 3: know that we could do this for a living. And
Speaker 3: we recorded that album Spoke About and it's just slowly
Speaker 3: snowballed and all of a sudden, you know, here we
Speaker 3: were having to kind of quit our jobs, and we
Speaker 3: were like, what is going on? A couple of kids
Speaker 3: from Rocky a blackfire and a white feather, and does
Speaker 3: this actually happen? I thought, you just watched this on TV?
Speaker 3: And yeah, And then we were lucky enough to pick
Speaker 3: up a big swag of awards and be recognized by
Speaker 3: the trail music industry, and you know, most importantly, we
Speaker 3: had fans coming into our shows and those fans have
Speaker 3: now become friends and now they're coming to my solo show.
Speaker 3: So man, just in a blink of an eye, it's
Speaker 3: just been like, you know, bang, twenty years, four kids
Speaker 3: each and just so many tours and tour in Australia
Speaker 3: and it's it's a bit of wild journey and we're
Speaker 3: we're really proud.
Speaker 4: And you're stepping out into the solo spotlight. Was that difficult?
Speaker 3: Look a little bit? I didn't like. I always wanted
Speaker 3: to do a solo album and everyone knew it. Jeremy
Speaker 3: was like wanting me to do it. I thought I'd
Speaker 3: do it after the third Buzzby Maru album, but Buzzby
Speaker 3: or were so busy and I don't know, it was
Speaker 3: a little bit nerve racking trying to do it without him.
Speaker 3: He's so you know, it's just so natural to us
Speaker 3: playing together. But I always knew I had to do
Speaker 3: it at some stage, and we decided we wanted to
Speaker 3: have a break. So we wanted to We wanted a
Speaker 3: proper break from not not like frowrom each other or
Speaker 3: not from the music, just we wanted to break from
Speaker 3: relentless touring and we wanted to only tour if it
Speaker 3: meant something. And so we're really excited we made it.
Speaker 3: We made a decision to try to say no, and
Speaker 3: that that was my cause, like right, that was sorry,
Speaker 3: that was my call then to go right now. But
Speaker 3: you know, put my money where my mouth is and
Speaker 3: let's go on to us and get over to America
Speaker 3: and record my own album.
Speaker 4: Now, you've got blues and cultury country influencers in it,
Speaker 4: haven't you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in this album for sure. I mean there's a
Speaker 3: lot of pedal steer, a lot of bit of Dobbro
Speaker 3: mandolin fiddle. But you know, it kind of takes after
Speaker 3: a lot of my favorite songwriters. You've got Tom Petty,
Speaker 3: Bruce Springsteen, Paul Kelly, and I'm really leaning into that
Speaker 3: for this album. And you know, I'm a bit older now.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to be cool. I'm not. I don't
Speaker 3: care if it gets, you know, playing on the radio
Speaker 3: added to playlist. I have a different mindset. I just
Speaker 3: want to record and play an album that I'm so
Speaker 3: proud of. It means something to me, and if people
Speaker 3: connect to that, then that's unbelievable. And I've been noticing
Speaker 3: that we just did my first ever solo tour, intimate
Speaker 3: solo tour, and it was yeah, sold out. It was ridiculous.
Speaker 3: It was only smaller shows, but they're all sold out
Speaker 3: and people singing the songs, and yeah, it's there's something
Speaker 3: buzzn't about it, and I'm have you written all.
Speaker 4: The songs on your album?
Speaker 3: Yes? Yeah, I wrote all the songs on this album
Speaker 3: and all the buzzby Maror songs as well. And with
Speaker 3: this album particularly collaborated with some key people. Ben Couela,
Speaker 3: who produced the album. I wrote a bunch of songs
Speaker 3: with him, and he was really inspirational for me because
Speaker 3: he just kept pushing me and gave me the I
Speaker 3: don't know, i'd say, the confidence to be myself for
Speaker 3: not you know, and to really trust our gut instincts.
Speaker 3: So he's a key influencer there, and a bunch of
Speaker 3: other you know, best mates, and you know, some people
Speaker 3: I've looked up to. I show my songs and I
Speaker 3: love the idea of collaborating, so yeah, I write them all,
Speaker 3: but with a lot of help from some great friends.
Speaker 4: So how important did you is it to you to
Speaker 4: perform in front of an audience?
Speaker 3: Oh? Big time. It's so important, not only for you know,
Speaker 3: generating momentum for a project, or for an album or
Speaker 3: for music. But I really noticed that, you know, particularly
Speaker 3: with this tour. It's been a long time since Bu's
Speaker 3: been a toured like the longest break we had is
Speaker 3: about it. It's about a year and so I didn't
Speaker 3: realize until the very first show that I did down
Speaker 3: in Sydney's this beautiful little venue and or sold out
Speaker 3: and I walked in and I just was buzzing. And
Speaker 3: so for my mental health, for my happiness, my wife,
Speaker 3: my wife often says it's actually been saying it a
Speaker 3: lot lately. It's like, if I'm not playing music, I'm
Speaker 3: not happy. And if I'm not happy, the family's not happy.
Speaker 3: So can I go out and get amongst it?
Speaker 4: So where do we catch up with you in the
Speaker 4: next few months.
Speaker 3: There's lots and lots about to be announced and we're
Speaker 3: prepping now a proper tour with the band. So I'm
Speaker 3: hoping that hits the you know, hits the websites and
Speaker 3: all that in the next kind of month or so
Speaker 3: that by the end of the year, you know, you'll
Speaker 3: be seeing me all around Australia. So nothing official of announced,
Speaker 3: but we're really working on it. It's a slow and
Speaker 3: steady process.
Speaker 4: Tell us mate about your new single, cyclone, but.
Speaker 3: Pretty much replicates this journey. It's stepping out of the
Speaker 3: you know, the shadows of Busby Maru and the comfort
Speaker 3: of Busby Maru, I should say, and into the spotlight
Speaker 3: on my own. And with that is a lot of
Speaker 3: nervous anxiety, but there's so much excitement as well, and
Speaker 3: that is what it's about. It's like stepping into the
Speaker 3: great unknown, just like that cyclone and that that crazy
Speaker 3: cyclones that's smashed the east coast of Queensland. Quite often
Speaker 3: there's this like nervous tension in the air and it
Speaker 3: hits and but then afterwards you know, it might be
Speaker 3: a bit scary, but then all of a sudden you
Speaker 3: turn around that community spirit is just pumped up on steroids.
Speaker 3: Well that's with a vengeance.
Speaker 4: Well Tom, we're going to play cyclone now. God bless it,
Speaker 4: and thanks for talking to us tonight. God bless you,
Speaker 4: Tom Busby, God bless it.
Speaker 3: God bless you. My dad would say the same, thank you.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it, God blessing.
Speaker 5: Great.
Speaker 1: No Mama.
Speaker 5: Scared anymore, just a little.
Speaker 1: Cyclone.
Speaker 5: Were unnown anymore And I'm in the middle.
Speaker 1: You miss something I can lean into, You miss something
Speaker 1: I can run right through. I've been calked down a
Speaker 1: different plane. Something'screwing like a r roricane. Nothing like a
Speaker 1: dark man hanging on you know when I wiper, Well.
Speaker 5: I'm that to the strain. I know, I'm yes scared
Speaker 5: any more, just now, Gray Side, I know anymore, And
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 1: The medal, Give me a sweet running down my cheek,
Speaker 1: give me blisters on my hands and face. When don't
Speaker 1: get stuff.
Speaker 3: Gotta grab it good.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't back out even if I could.
Speaker 5: Nothing like a dark clan hanging on. You know when
Speaker 5: I will surrender, Well, I'm not gray.
Speaker 3: Norm of a.
Speaker 5: Scared and they leader and that the crazy sack phone
Speaker 5: where I had I known it. And I'm in the middle,
Speaker 5: and I'm mean the middle. I'm in the middle, head
Speaker 5: not to the grade. And nom I scared anymore, maybe
Speaker 5: just a little sad now Gray Cyclone were paid, I
Speaker 5: know anymore.
Speaker 1: And I'm in the middle.
Speaker 5: I'm in the middle,