Speaker 1: This podcast is brought to you by on Track Studio.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Yarning Up, a podcast that showcases stories of
Speaker 2: First Nations excellence to help us learn and unlearn Australia's history,
Speaker 2: to work tillward's a better future. I'm your host, Proud
Speaker 2: Barbara woman and founder of Blackwattle Coaching and Consulting, Caroline
Speaker 2: cal This podcast was taped on the sacred, stolen and
Speaker 2: unseeded Aboriginal lands of the Runduri people of the Coolin Nation.
Speaker 2: I pay my deepest respects to them, my elders, your elders,
Speaker 2: and all owners of country, of this beautiful place that
Speaker 2: we call home. Well, Tom Busby and Jeremy Maru aka
Speaker 2: the musical duo Buzzbymuru, Welcome to Janni Up. It's a
Speaker 2: huge pleasure to connect with you. As I was saying
Speaker 2: off a, we are huge fans of your work, so
Speaker 2: thanks for connecting today and how are you?
Speaker 3: Is today refreshed today? Actually we're on the Primo tour
Speaker 3: circuit for years, believe it or not, and it's totally
Speaker 3: different than touring. You work out during the day, you're
Speaker 3: up early, but you're in bed before eight o'clock.
Speaker 4: If you like Netflix, suber Eats, No kids, quite relaxing.
Speaker 5: That's been visited during the daytimes with nine times in
Speaker 5: bed early now kids.
Speaker 3: Best part of being an artist, Yeah, very rare. It
Speaker 3: only happens every few years.
Speaker 2: So you're going to suck it up, I bet, and
Speaker 2: no doubt we know that your mob have definitely got
Speaker 2: your hands full. Well, I'm wondering if we could start
Speaker 2: with maybe, you know, telling us a little bit about
Speaker 2: you and your story. We know that you've got a
Speaker 2: sixteen year long friendship and partnership, but maybe we could
Speaker 2: go back, tell us how you met and how you've
Speaker 2: come to be sure.
Speaker 3: Well, we're both Rockampton Boys and Central Queensland and Jeremy
Speaker 3: still lives there, and I'm still in Queensland, but I'm
Speaker 3: a lot further down south now in Corumbon Gold Coast
Speaker 3: and just started with just playing at pubs. Jeremy was
Speaker 3: playing in a band with a maid of mine and
Speaker 3: that was our mutual friend, and I was at union.
Speaker 3: I'd come home from the holidays and watch these guys
Speaker 3: play their covers and everyone loving them and having a
Speaker 3: good time, and so I brought my guitar along to
Speaker 3: their gigs and I'd jump up in between the sets,
Speaker 3: and when I got on, it's actually got to be boring.
Speaker 3: It's just me playing love songs originals too, so no
Speaker 3: one wanted to hear them. So I thought, hang on
Speaker 3: a minute, how do I get all this attention like
Speaker 3: he's got to getting And in the back of my
Speaker 3: mind was like, God, it'd be good to have Jeremy
Speaker 3: decide me because he can make anyone sound good. And anyway,
Speaker 3: as the years went on, that's what happened. That just
Speaker 3: timing was great. Our mutual friend left Risbond and I
Speaker 3: came back home for a year, and yeah, it just
Speaker 3: got Jeremy call.
Speaker 4: And said, let's link up and write some tunes and
Speaker 4: play at the pubs.
Speaker 3: And the amount of hours we put in Planet, every
Speaker 3: single club around town, every day of the week for nothing,
Speaker 3: actually free beer. We developed a sound and an audience
Speaker 3: as well. Or started Rocky kind of evolved. We didn't
Speaker 3: think that we're going to be doing this for a living.
Speaker 3: We just love what we were doing. That was why I.
Speaker 4: Think it went so well.
Speaker 3: We had no expectations, we didn't put pressure on ourselves,
Speaker 3: were just loving it.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I think.
Speaker 3: Snowboard with a few lucky calls and some opportunities that
Speaker 3: at the time we didn't know how lucky we were.
Speaker 2: I imagine it would be a pretty humbling experience kind
Speaker 2: of playing at pubs for as you say, for beer
Speaker 2: and just the joy of learning the craft. I mean,
Speaker 2: we're both of you musicians before taking the pub stages on.
Speaker 2: Is music always been in your crystal ball? Has it
Speaker 2: been something you both enjoyed growing up?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 5: I mean I try to explain to people music is
Speaker 5: are part of culture for me and I mean from big,
Speaker 5: try strong family. Yeah, it's not something that you're toughish,
Speaker 5: just something that you do. Black pillows always they share
Speaker 5: their stories through song and dance. Growing up on Ship,
Speaker 5: every family had guitars around the kitchen and played songs
Speaker 5: straight after dinner, and so it was very natural for
Speaker 5: me and Tom's very similar to big musical families. We
Speaker 5: always knew we're going to play music one way or another,
Speaker 5: whether it's at the pubs forever or with the kids
Speaker 5: at home. But it wasn't for late. For me, it's like, well,
Speaker 5: well I'll just quit my job to do music. It's
Speaker 5: actually a job. It really wasn't until I quit my job.
Speaker 5: I was like, okay, no, it's it's serious now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2: You know, music is such a big part of our
Speaker 2: big black households. I mean ours was Alan Jackson and
Speaker 2: playing the spoons. We didn't really have guitars laying around,
Speaker 2: but that coming together to sing and dance. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a huge part of black home. So how lovely and
Speaker 2: so did you follows grow up together in Rockhampton? You
Speaker 2: knew each other, knocked about as teenagers and kind of
Speaker 2: are now working together in this field.
Speaker 4: No, I mean we both met as teenagers nineteen and seventeen.
Speaker 3: I think we were when we met, but Jammy was
Speaker 3: a couple of years younger, and by that stage different schools.
Speaker 4: You always know each other and hear of each other,
Speaker 4: and here of people, I kind.
Speaker 3: Of took off straight up the boarding school, went straight
Speaker 3: to Brizzy to go to UNI, and you know, just
Speaker 3: coming home on the holidays, hear about this new young
Speaker 3: fellow that can play guitar. Real well, I'm looking at whatever,
Speaker 3: I'm like, wow.
Speaker 4: Who is this guy? That's where it started.
Speaker 3: We've got mutual friends and all our families are connected
Speaker 3: now and that's the beauty of coming from a great
Speaker 3: community in a country town like Rocky you know each
Speaker 3: other even if you sort of have never met.
Speaker 2: From knocking around in Rockhampton to going on to making
Speaker 2: five studio albums. This week you have released your fifth
Speaker 2: studio album, Blood Red. Congratulations. It's a beautiful album. It's
Speaker 2: so calming and serene. It feels like a warm holiday.
Speaker 2: But there's obviously a deep, soulful storytelling throughout all of
Speaker 2: your music, but particularly potent in this album. I'm wondering
Speaker 2: how you follows would describe this album and the journey
Speaker 2: in creating this kind of new sound.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, it's been a longer journey than most because
Speaker 3: of what's happened in the world, but that actually has
Speaker 3: worked in our favor in the past. You know, we
Speaker 3: wrote Jimmy mentioned this yesterday. We had our whole life
Speaker 3: to write the first album, and then the second, third,
Speaker 3: and fourth. It was just like quick, quick, quick, knock
Speaker 3: them out and thankfully don't have too much time to
Speaker 3: think about those. But with this one, we were thinking
Speaker 3: about the album. We were hanging out their family. We
Speaker 3: knew that we couldn't tour too much. It was actually
Speaker 3: a relief when the rest of the world, particularly the
Speaker 3: music industry, and it probably feel bad saying this when
Speaker 3: they were all probably struggling and we're trying to work
Speaker 3: out what to do next with their careers or how
Speaker 3: to get work. We were actually the opposite because we
Speaker 3: just hadn't been able to spend that real good quality
Speaker 3: time at home with our families. So part of the
Speaker 3: pro calmness you might hear from that is a little
Speaker 3: bit of a relief that we got from the shutdown
Speaker 3: to be able to just hang with their family and
Speaker 3: say no to gigs for the first time in fifteen.
Speaker 4: Twenty years, we're actually saying no.
Speaker 3: Then, when it came to record the album, we were
Speaker 3: in no rush, couldn't release an album anytime soon. But
Speaker 3: we had about twenty songs done, thought that was the album,
Speaker 3: but none of those songs made the album. And so
Speaker 3: fast forward and we had a heaps of cool experiences.
Speaker 3: We were playing random shows every now and then, and
Speaker 3: so leading up to those shows, one was up in
Speaker 3: Port Douglas. Let's get a couple of days in Port
Speaker 3: Douglas and set up the gear, and let's get a
Speaker 3: place outside of cans in an airbnb and see what
Speaker 3: happens and just yeah, mulaney, we went to Great kepl
Speaker 3: no pressure. We didn't have to go there and write
Speaker 3: a song and had to be great. We just went
Speaker 3: and we took mates and collaborated and I think as
Speaker 3: a result, the collection of songs.
Speaker 4: Probably better than most albums so they say, or kill
Speaker 4: ant Phillip.
Speaker 3: But yeah, we had time to reflect on the stories
Speaker 3: and probably something I've realized recently because we played the
Speaker 3: album Start Finish recently out of a beautiful event. KP.
Speaker 4: Hillsbrough the stories.
Speaker 3: In the past, we probably tried to write for other people,
Speaker 3: or write for radio, or write for a purpose.
Speaker 4: This has written for us.
Speaker 3: These are our genuine stories of where we are in
Speaker 3: our life and remembering and reflecting back. In a way,
Speaker 3: it's a lot more timeless than anything we've done.
Speaker 2: Wow, that sense of kind of growth and maturity as artist,
Speaker 2: but being able to sort of do the music that
Speaker 2: you love for you and it sounds that we're slowing
Speaker 2: down and kind of going back to your roots, your family,
Speaker 2: the things that light you up. Has created this ease
Speaker 2: with it all and it kind of shines through in
Speaker 2: the album. Have you got any kind of favorite songs?
Speaker 1: On the album.
Speaker 2: I mean, there are quite a few, and they are
Speaker 2: so different as well in some ways. So any favorites.
Speaker 5: Tom's changed every sad day. Someone ask him it's a
Speaker 5: different one different. Yes, mine's pretty solid. Minds smiles from
Speaker 5: a stranger, maybe because it goes back to our roots.
Speaker 5: It's just an acoustic guitar and some beautiful harmonies. But
Speaker 5: I missed out on the riding the demo for this
Speaker 5: home for some family stuff, and.
Speaker 3: I heard it the next day.
Speaker 5: I was like, well, that's so good anyway, So we
Speaker 5: went to the studio where we tried to re record
Speaker 5: it to make it all sound even nicer, and we
Speaker 5: just couldn't get it. So I kind of insisted that
Speaker 5: we keep the demo version as the real version.
Speaker 3: I just added some harmony and some.
Speaker 5: Tasteful guitar, and what you hear is the demo version
Speaker 5: on the album.
Speaker 3: I'm going.
Speaker 1: And I'm over the line.
Speaker 3: He just smile from a stranger, Probably mine right now,
Speaker 3: maybe because we've been talking at about it a bit
Speaker 3: the last few days. Is a song called Someone, and
Speaker 3: that's just the combination of the process of writing it,
Speaker 3: which was awesome, and how it makes me feel at
Speaker 3: the moment, but the writing process was by far the
Speaker 3: most exciting we've ever been involved in. And that is
Speaker 3: we were overseas and we got to write this with
Speaker 3: Darius Rucker or Hoody and the Blowfish and obviously you
Speaker 3: know American superstar and got a call to say, hey,
Speaker 3: do you want to write with Darius Rucker and go
Speaker 3: down to his place in South Carolina. We thought it
Speaker 3: was a stitch up, to be honest, how does this happen?
Speaker 3: It just came out of the blue. We went to
Speaker 3: his house and we still didn't know whether we were
Speaker 3: writing for him, with him for us, for what was
Speaker 3: going on, or we were just meeting him and no
Speaker 3: one could tell us anything more. But yeah, he's like, no,
Speaker 3: I just love Aussie's having it right with you guys
Speaker 3: would be great. And so we've spent a day at
Speaker 3: his house having a beer and he's awesome. Man.
Speaker 1: Cave you can only imagine.
Speaker 3: Was bigger than my house. Yeah, surrounded by sporting memorabilia.
Speaker 3: And the last two people there to write a song
Speaker 3: with him there was justin Timberlake and Chris Staples. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and we wrote this song and it was a song
Speaker 3: that I'd had at my sleeve for a while, and
Speaker 3: I don't know whether I wasn't confident because it was
Speaker 3: sounding like a timeless song and I was hoping that
Speaker 3: to be that. Jamy was the one that courages us
Speaker 3: to do it. He's like, no, no, there's something in
Speaker 3: that song. Let's do it. And then what Dary has
Speaker 3: brought out of us is don't overthink it and just
Speaker 3: get straight to the point. And you know, in the
Speaker 3: past we're probably trying to be a bit more youthful
Speaker 3: and cool and hip, and with this song.
Speaker 4: We just went straight to it.
Speaker 3: And all the great songwriters and our biggest influences, you know,
Speaker 3: the Willie Nelson's and Tom Petties, Bruce Springsteen's, they just
Speaker 3: get straight to it and they don't try to fill
Speaker 3: it up with hipster cool stuff.
Speaker 4: They just tell the story as it is, and that
Speaker 4: that's what this song was about.
Speaker 3: It's just about fine in love, but it takes a
Speaker 3: few times to get through it. Whether your heart's broken
Speaker 3: or whether you break your hearts, there's someone And also
Speaker 3: I just love the production of it. It's easy going
Speaker 3: at slow paced, and Jeremy's got a beautiful solo one
Speaker 3: which is sounding really cool live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for my first brothers and.
Speaker 3: I saw walking around she said, you have a drink salt.
Speaker 2: What a process in terms of creating that song, having
Speaker 2: no idea that you're going to make a song with
Speaker 2: Darius that day. What a beautiful, beautiful story. One of
Speaker 2: my favorite songs. And I don't know whether it's because
Speaker 2: it's just a point in my life right now where
Speaker 2: I'm at as a coach and working with a lot
Speaker 2: of First Nations women in this power of surrendering. A
Speaker 2: lot of us, you know, have big loads, big mobs
Speaker 2: and are taking on a lot. But one of my
Speaker 2: favorite songs on the album so far is Surrender. I
Speaker 2: really love it. There's actually some lyrics in there that
Speaker 2: talks about maybe I should let it go, just like
Speaker 2: you said one thing, I know, time ain't fair, And yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if you can expand a little bit on
Speaker 2: what was the inspiration behind this particular song and maybe
Speaker 2: expand on some of these lyrics, because it's a really
Speaker 2: beautiful and poetic song and just the power of us
Speaker 2: all surrendering to what's in and out about control at
Speaker 2: the moment. What we are taking on is a really
Speaker 2: beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: Now, Well, thank you. Firstly, that's probably over all the
Speaker 3: band's favorite. That song in particular, Minds is mostly of
Speaker 3: our sound, you know, our original sound, and again one
Speaker 3: of those songs that we're not trying to write it
Speaker 3: for anyone else, are actually pouring out our feelings. And
Speaker 3: obviously you can take this interpret and however you like,
Speaker 3: but you're spot on with that.
Speaker 4: It's a big challenge to surrender.
Speaker 3: And it's pretty easy to have imposter syndrome and you
Speaker 3: feel like you're not at the right place because you're
Speaker 3: not supposed to be there, and it's just accepting, it's
Speaker 3: trying to be accepting, whether it's in love, this kind
Speaker 3: of reflection of a lot of people not committing to
Speaker 3: something because they're scared of the future or scared of
Speaker 3: what's about the happen. Is it the right move, It's
Speaker 3: not the right move. And timemt fairline probably sums that
Speaker 3: whole song up. Don't waste time, you don't know what's
Speaker 3: around the corner. Just let go, Let go, and whether
Speaker 3: that's fall in love or taking a job that you're
Speaker 3: not sure of, or actually just shaking out that imposter syndrome.
Speaker 3: And our name the only way to become successful is
Speaker 3: to do something. Just do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, take that action, take that step, you know, be brave,
Speaker 2: and yeah, you're right. Time is not promised and so yeah,
Speaker 2: all we have is now and given into red hot
Speaker 2: go right. I mean, as I mentioned before, your friendships
Speaker 2: and your partnership in music is sixteen years. I imagine
Speaker 2: with any partnership there would be maybe some little bumps
Speaker 2: in the road or how you guys work together to
Speaker 2: create I'm curious to understand as a team, what goes
Speaker 2: into making an album like this, and how do you
Speaker 2: work together?
Speaker 1: What's the creative process?
Speaker 2: How do you manage those little bumps in the road
Speaker 2: about work together?
Speaker 5: I think we've got a lucky relationship really because we
Speaker 5: don't necessarily disagree on much, even with the music side
Speaker 5: of things. Early days it was different. I wanted to
Speaker 5: be a country band. Tom wanted to be a single songwriter.
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, we should be country. Would have
Speaker 5: been a good Actually, now we know bread and butter,
Speaker 5: and a lot of that had to do with learning
Speaker 5: our trade together and Rocky playing a thousand gigs in
Speaker 5: pubs a week. We know our sound and it's our
Speaker 5: first album. A great producer Anthony Losanka is no longer
Speaker 5: with us, but he made us sit and.
Speaker 3: Play play, play, play, play, repeat the song and packed
Speaker 3: the song and then record it. And I was just
Speaker 3: sitting the man.
Speaker 5: I've done this a thousand times literally, but I guess
Speaker 5: what I'm trying to say is that process really drummed
Speaker 5: our sound into us. And a lot of people say, oh,
Speaker 5: I love your first album. Love your first album. Through
Speaker 5: our first album right through to our last one, fifth one.
Speaker 5: We've added stuff and we've taken stuff out and we've
Speaker 5: added stuff from let's do a pop album, make it
Speaker 5: more country. So we know our roots, We know what
Speaker 5: our bread and butter is, and that makes it easy
Speaker 5: when it comes to a greend on things. One thing
Speaker 5: we always going to ground that it needs to be
Speaker 5: acoustic and with some nice harmonies.
Speaker 4: We didn't argue a bit too much miss recorded nah.
Speaker 3: I think the other thing is as you get older,
Speaker 3: you just do understand each other or you know, you
Speaker 3: don't make people do what they don't want to do,
Speaker 3: and you know you weet your mates first and foremost
Speaker 3: and say you've got to respect that part of it.
Speaker 4: And we're both family men. We love each other's kids.
Speaker 3: You know, we look after each other's families, really tight
Speaker 3: with each other, so that that's a big part of it.
Speaker 3: And you know, same with our crew. To a certain extent,
Speaker 3: we're probably to a fault. We actually our crew and
Speaker 3: our band there become our family, which is awesome because
Speaker 3: that's how you want to operate. But when it's someone's
Speaker 3: a little bit out of line or it makes it
Speaker 3: hard then because then you've got to put the boss
Speaker 3: hat on and that's not something we want to do.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day to running a
Speaker 3: business as well, so and I it's not like that,
Speaker 3: but the crew we still got a big family vibe
Speaker 3: as well, but we're trying to juggle all the hats.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the boundaries, I hear you. I guess it sort
Speaker 2: of sounds like, as you say, you know, really spending
Speaker 2: that time early in your career defining and getting clarity
Speaker 2: on where your strengths are, what it is you want
Speaker 2: to put out there. That discipline in rehearsing and practicing kind.
Speaker 1: Of gave you that clarity.
Speaker 2: And it's beautiful because when we spend time in understanding
Speaker 2: our values and our why, then we don't often waver
Speaker 2: from that. So it sounds like that's kind of the case,
Speaker 2: but in essence you mob have just grown and evolved
Speaker 2: and built on those sort of early foundations. That's cool
Speaker 2: to hear the process of working together. Also, because you
Speaker 2: too have four children in each I'm sure that when
Speaker 2: you come to work, the art of negotiation and bargaining
Speaker 2: and conflict management should be at a allow.
Speaker 3: When you put it that way, it is so much
Speaker 3: easier in the studio negotiating and trying to convince my
Speaker 3: four year old that you can't have fruitlets midwek for breakfast,
Speaker 3: traumatizing me.
Speaker 4: They're just thinking about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, trigger, trigger. I know you both have four kids.
Speaker 2: What are the ages, Jeremy, how old are your fault?
Speaker 5: So I've got a nineteen year old he turned in
Speaker 5: ten years actually fifteen sixteen, and a five.
Speaker 1: Year old beautiful and Tom, what's your mom play?
Speaker 4: And so Jeremy joined me.
Speaker 3: Lady felt sorry for me because I was down again,
Speaker 3: and he thought it was funny and then wasn't funny
Speaker 3: In the end, after his nine year gap, almost eight
Speaker 3: year old, seven year old, six year old, four year
Speaker 3: old and a almost two year old.
Speaker 2: Handful, how was fathers and business owners and musicians and friends.
Speaker 1: How do you juggle it? What does it look like?
Speaker 2: How do you find time for yourselves and also for
Speaker 2: family and for you know, the creative process.
Speaker 4: It's totally different now.
Speaker 3: I look at Jeremy's the way his relationship with these
Speaker 3: children now and mine, and probably i'd say be totally
Speaker 3: different because when we were young and we didn't really
Speaker 3: care about the actual structure of the business. We just
Speaker 3: cared about playing gigs. Jeremy was in the thick of
Speaker 3: it with these young kids. You probably can't even remember
Speaker 3: those times. I imagine I going to it, appreciated going
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not all the time.
Speaker 3: You come home and want to sleep. And I didn't
Speaker 3: have any sympathy for him because I was like, who cares,
Speaker 3: you know? But I could go home and just sleep
Speaker 3: all day long. And now that it's the other end,
Speaker 3: but it's all about the business side of it, and
Speaker 3: it's for me. The juggle is real. Man. My wife
Speaker 3: works full time and she travels away for work as well,
Speaker 3: and say, you know, I'm away for a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks now, and she's kind of desperately needing to go
Speaker 3: away for her work, so she's blocking it in the calendar,
Speaker 3: so when I walk in the door, it's usually like
Speaker 3: high five out. She goes for a few days and
Speaker 3: I've got the full kids and I'm back into that
Speaker 3: mode again, which I do love. But one thing you
Speaker 3: do want to show you kids is that you're a
Speaker 3: hard worker. You want them to be hard workers. And
Speaker 3: it's difficult in a way because we've got this job
Speaker 3: that seems so easy and so fun, and it's like
Speaker 3: we have a party every night, which we are. Every
Speaker 3: day is a Saturday. We work, so we work our
Speaker 3: asses off here. In order to be successful in whatever
Speaker 3: you do, you're going to get up and go to
Speaker 3: work and work hard and say, I want.
Speaker 4: To show my kids that I'm starting to do that
Speaker 4: a bit more.
Speaker 3: The last few years was just literally just trying and
Speaker 3: put one foot in front of the other with babies
Speaker 3: and nappies. But you can see the light now and
Speaker 3: so now I'm serving to kind of shove that I'm
Speaker 3: trying to be healthy as much as it can be
Speaker 3: and just going to work. It's important that they go
Speaker 3: to school and daycare know that their parents actually work,
Speaker 3: and I think that's a good I hope it's a
Speaker 3: good example set.
Speaker 5: We've got the same priorities to which makes life easy
Speaker 5: for both of us. We blank outur school holidays. We
Speaker 5: don't care what things come in. We're home in school holidays.
Speaker 5: It gets great, so we think the same. We both
Speaker 5: we're a lot more mature now than we were fifteen
Speaker 5: years ago or two, which also helps, not a lot,
Speaker 5: just a little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, I imagine having the four little ones keeps you
Speaker 2: pretty young and youthful as well, and you know, holding
Speaker 2: onto that sense of joy. But yeah, it's beautiful to
Speaker 2: hear that. I mean, you're right, you know, kids look
Speaker 2: at what we do, not what we say, and as
Speaker 2: you say, showing them that to work is to make
Speaker 2: something of yourself, but to do something you actually love
Speaker 2: as well is really cool. Not to that sort of
Speaker 2: corporate hustle and grind that so many of us are
Speaker 2: led to believe is important, but following your actual dreams
Speaker 2: and passions, and it's nice that you get to share
Speaker 2: that part of your lives together. The two is being
Speaker 2: dads and sharing that journey when.
Speaker 1: You're on the road.
Speaker 2: I know that you're coming up to a tour in
Speaker 2: August and September. What does the process look like in
Speaker 2: sort of nourishing yourself when you're on the road. Is
Speaker 2: it possible to slow down in those moments or do
Speaker 2: you have any practices and ways to sort of stay
Speaker 2: grounded through all of that, because I imagine the chaotic
Speaker 2: family life and then the chaotic on the road would
Speaker 2: be another form of chaos.
Speaker 3: Well, to be honest, bad example is the Tiny Tawns
Speaker 3: tour which we just finished. That should actually be a
Speaker 3: billboard for how to not nourish yourself. But the different
Speaker 3: tours for different reasons. We used to be able to
Speaker 3: just get up and go, and I'm talking we didn't
Speaker 3: sleep a lot on the tour. We were partying.
Speaker 4: We played the gigs every night. Was unbelievable. Couldn't believe
Speaker 4: a plan to all these people.
Speaker 3: And then you go out afterwards and maybe the labels
Speaker 3: there and you meet people, and then you've got to
Speaker 3: go to the airport. Then you've got to hit the
Speaker 3: ground run and you do promo all the way up
Speaker 3: to the gig, and you play the gig and you
Speaker 3: have a few beers to get through it. So you
Speaker 3: developed pretty bad lifestyle very quickly. But because you're young
Speaker 3: or you're made to doing that anyway, on the weekends.
Speaker 3: We're doing it every day of the week, so you
Speaker 3: can really develop bad habits, which we did, like most bands,
Speaker 3: but we just literally can't do that these days.
Speaker 4: We still do, don't get me wrong, We still do
Speaker 4: have those huge.
Speaker 3: Nights, get up and go the next day, it's a
Speaker 3: slog and the worst thing is then after that is
Speaker 3: then going home after a huge weekend of gigs and
Speaker 3: two much drinking or not much sleep, and then you
Speaker 3: go home to your kids and you're just not a
Speaker 3: good person to be around. You still get up and
Speaker 3: do the jobs, but you're pretty grumpy, grumpy, grumpy, grumby
Speaker 3: old man. That's right. So that was the Tiny Towns tour.
Speaker 3: But there's a time and place for those shows because
Speaker 3: you're in small communities. And the whole idea of that
Speaker 3: is you're supposed to invest into those people, into the town,
Speaker 3: and we love doing that. It takes us toll that
Speaker 3: the big turm coming up. Jeremy was just talking about
Speaker 3: our schedule. There was one week there that looks like Foreshore.
Speaker 3: It's got to be our busiest week of all time.
Speaker 3: A's eight shows and seven days or different cities and
Speaker 3: five maybe us six. I don't want to think about
Speaker 3: it at the moment. But in order to get through
Speaker 3: that too, I think it's just you treat it more
Speaker 3: business minded. You look after your voice. If you can't
Speaker 3: sing or we can't play, all these people that have
Speaker 3: bought tickets, they won't get to see the best show.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm looking forward to actually being healthy this tour.
Speaker 3: We've been saying that a lot over the past few years.
Speaker 3: But hopefully kick my time.
Speaker 2: I mean imagine it would be quite difficult to manage
Speaker 2: any sort of structure and routine when you're on the road.
Speaker 2: But again hearing the journey with it all and working
Speaker 2: it out and being kind to yourself along the way,
Speaker 2: you know, speaking of to it, You've toured with incredible
Speaker 2: musicians Midnight Oil, Cold Chisel Out and John dolly Parton,
Speaker 2: James Blunt, Guy Sabashian List goes on, can you share
Speaker 2: any memorable moments or any good stories from any of
Speaker 2: that time that is worthy of noting and love to
Speaker 2: know if there's any memory stories.
Speaker 5: Well, they're all pretty amazing, got stories for every single
Speaker 5: one of them. Elton John was probably for me the
Speaker 5: highlight discause of his I won the size of the
Speaker 5: shows and to how good he was live his age
Speaker 5: to go and sit on a stage for two hours
Speaker 5: non stop and play song after song after song.
Speaker 3: He's seriously good.
Speaker 5: We met him a couple of times, was briefly passing
Speaker 5: and he said, I'll pop down and I'll pop down
Speaker 5: and I'll come and say today.
Speaker 3: And the one night that he came to a dressing room.
Speaker 5: To say good a was Broncos and Melbourne Storm were
Speaker 5: playing the semi final.
Speaker 1: I'm a Murray so I get it TV now.
Speaker 5: The crew were watching AFL, so we left three pact
Speaker 5: that we played and we got back to our motel.
Speaker 3: That night.
Speaker 5: He walked all the way from his dressing sheds to
Speaker 5: our dressing room to say gooday and was like, no
Speaker 5: one's there.
Speaker 3: We were gone. Well he met all our crew and
Speaker 3: all that we just met, and I'm like, what him
Speaker 3: in a meeting probably, but anyway, it was that was
Speaker 3: an awesome experience. Meeting Dolly Parton was believable as well.
Speaker 3: She was so nice. But we had to line up
Speaker 3: like in this huge line of all these famous people
Speaker 3: as celebrities as well lining up with us, and we
Speaker 3: were the one supporting and that was really cool. You
Speaker 3: mentioned Alan Jackson, and actually I forgot about that.
Speaker 2: We supported Alam Jackson as well, like true God.
Speaker 3: Forgot about that. We didn't get to meet Alan Jackson.
Speaker 3: But with Tim McGraw, oh that is a story. We
Speaker 3: were fresh meat. I mean it was probably our.
Speaker 4: First kind of big support festival.
Speaker 3: We were the first band on and here we can't
Speaker 3: were the first due looking rock and Rayle rip Jeets
Speaker 3: and everyone else is pretty formal and pro, and Tim
Speaker 3: McGraw was pretty pro talking about looking after your health.
Speaker 3: He was at that stage of his career where he
Speaker 3: had then made it very important that there's no alcohol backstage.
Speaker 3: His crew can't drink for the gig. They've all got
Speaker 3: to get up and do a run six k's or
Speaker 3: at least walk every day and trying to.
Speaker 4: Get everyone healthy.
Speaker 3: And they're all lott of colors. These guys have been
Speaker 3: his band for twenty six years. Or and Jeremy and
Speaker 3: I having a party in our room. We played our
Speaker 3: gig and we're having this huge party, and we had
Speaker 3: a mate plan that did redo for us and we're
Speaker 3: having this party and this is awesome, but we tucked
Speaker 3: our way so we couldn't get in trouble and then
Speaker 3: a couple of the guys from the band Tim mcgrath'sby
Speaker 3: got the sniff of this noise and they're like, whoa,
Speaker 3: these guys haveing.
Speaker 4: A party, So they snuck down his whole room. They
Speaker 4: had a party with the first support fan on What
Speaker 4: made it Even.
Speaker 3: Our manager at the time was real good at talking
Speaker 3: rubbish and he was so funny and we weren't even
Speaker 3: knowing then, but he rang around like a nightclub and said, hey,
Speaker 3: these guys are I'm managing it's been They just got
Speaker 3: number one on iTunes. We had nothing huge lineup. It
Speaker 3: was Townsville, actually towns one of the same rocks. It
Speaker 3: was a huge lineup outside this huge nightclub, and of
Speaker 3: all the things, we shared a limousine with Chuggy Chuggy
Speaker 3: to drop him off to the actual event where Tim
Speaker 3: Gral's band and all the other bands were going, but
Speaker 3: we didn't want to go there. We just went to
Speaker 3: this nightclub and we used the car limo. We didn't
Speaker 3: get out like this, just over and the security go
Speaker 3: you here they are and opened the door.
Speaker 4: So it was just all false.
Speaker 6: They didn't Oh my god, who were these guys? All
Speaker 6: the Tim McGraw's crew and all the other bands that
Speaker 6: were much higher than us on the bill. They were
Speaker 6: all ringing our manager going can you get us in?
Speaker 6: Can you get us in? They left their party to
Speaker 6: come to.
Speaker 1: The crew. I love that. What a great story.
Speaker 2: And it goes to show I've seen these things on
Speaker 2: YouTube where people get false paparazzi or whatever and get
Speaker 2: a real g up and people just start following the crowd.
Speaker 1: Oh, what a great story. I'm surprised you remember it.
Speaker 4: One of the great memories as you see it with
Speaker 4: young artists.
Speaker 3: Though. The reason it.
Speaker 4: Worked is because we literally thought.
Speaker 3: We were that was the biggest thing that was ever
Speaker 3: going to happen to us. You know, that was massive.
Speaker 3: At the time we played, probably I don't know, maybe
Speaker 3: there was twenty thousand people there and we probably played
Speaker 3: to the first two thousand that were walking through for us.
Speaker 3: I didn't know if they heard a song.
Speaker 4: We didn't care.
Speaker 3: We were part of it. And now we look. We
Speaker 3: had a young fellow supporters in a rocky at local
Speaker 3: boy named Jame and Bob, and he was so good
Speaker 3: and he never played a gig, and I remember watching
Speaker 3: him and the excitement, the absolute excitement he had with
Speaker 3: his family and his friends there getting fight eysed and
Speaker 3: all cheering for him, and he played fifteen or twenty
Speaker 3: minutes and it was like, wow, that's right. We used
Speaker 3: to feel that the part of this cell was we
Speaker 3: actually believed it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ever that sort of young invincibility and just yeah,
Speaker 2: living your best life. I was at a gig at
Speaker 2: the corner in Richmond. He probably would know it, probably
Speaker 2: in Horned of Yours. There was a lad the young
Speaker 2: like followed Sam's Rizzy. He was playing He's like seventeen.
Speaker 2: It was his debut gig, and just the elation and
Speaker 2: the aunts were there, and you know, it felt like
Speaker 2: everyone rolled out the Red Cup and just thinking about
Speaker 2: this is going to be such an important time in
Speaker 2: his career, that first time of getting up there, and
Speaker 2: we were.
Speaker 1: All just so tough for him. I mean with that
Speaker 1: in mine.
Speaker 2: You know, for any new artist out there, people who
Speaker 2: are starting their careers as you MOB are at the
Speaker 2: fifth studio album. Any advice that you give to anyone
Speaker 2: who's starting out and doesn't have that sense of clarity
Speaker 2: that you MOB have, well they.
Speaker 5: Just take it all in your stride, enjoy every bit
Speaker 5: of it. There's no right or wrong in songwriting and anything,
Speaker 5: there's no right or wrong. You make smart decisions, look
Speaker 5: at it like a business. But the main thing is
Speaker 5: it's just savor every second of it, rememberable and it's
Speaker 5: hard to think that at the time, but just talking
Speaker 5: about those early memories now and thinking about these young kids,
Speaker 5: how happy they are.
Speaker 4: It doesn't get better in ten years time.
Speaker 3: And if you're going well and you got to create,
Speaker 3: not that you become cynical, but it becomes a business
Speaker 3: and you start. You know, you might sell a thousand tickets,
Speaker 3: but it's twelve hundred people. Okay, it wasn't I sold out.
Speaker 3: You know when your first people are coming. You might
Speaker 3: have twenty people that come to your first gig in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: You're like, it's huge people. How do they know us?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So appreciating that.
Speaker 3: And also big bit of advice and no matter how
Speaker 3: much advice they get on this, they'll definitely suffer. This
Speaker 3: along the way is don't compare yourself to anyone else
Speaker 3: because you'll start doubting yourself. Just worry about your own
Speaker 3: backyard journey.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really good advice. I think living in the
Speaker 2: digital age that we live in. You know, comparison becomes
Speaker 2: the kind of thief of joy, and keep sort of
Speaker 2: reminding myself and clients and people I work with in
Speaker 2: people in our community that you know, if you're looking
Speaker 2: at someone's story, they might be on their chapter fifty.
Speaker 1: We're on our chapter.
Speaker 2: One water our own grass instead of thinking about what's
Speaker 2: over there. So it's beautiful advice to not get disillusioned
Speaker 2: by the process and the sense of mastery and the journey.
Speaker 4: Of it all.
Speaker 2: All right, So August September, you're hitting the road. Where
Speaker 2: can we find you? Where can we see you? Where
Speaker 2: can people come and experience the beautiful magic that is
Speaker 2: blood Red.
Speaker 3: Well in Melbourne, we're playing at the corner Ah Local.
Speaker 3: I'll see you spent a few years, I think last
Speaker 3: time we were there we had the Testy brother supporting our.
Speaker 4: Talking about support acts.
Speaker 3: We are hoping she does just as good as the
Speaker 3: Testy Brothers because we absolutely love her. We've got Jim
Speaker 3: Cassadally joining us on the road, who is just so good.
Speaker 3: She's so good. And Steph Strings is another awesome young
Speaker 3: female talent that's joining us for three shows Sydney, Thuryule
Speaker 3: and Newcastle obviously all up and down the East Coast.
Speaker 4: Pretty much everywhere.
Speaker 3: We're not going to Western Australia just yet, so anyone
Speaker 3: over there that's been asking, we're definitely working on something
Speaker 3: for you guys. But yeah, I think have some really
Speaker 3: beautiful venues, the Princess Theater and Brisbane, and of course
Speaker 3: in October we take it to our home rock Hampton,
Speaker 3: Keys Townsville, Mackay and everything's selling very well. So we're
Speaker 3: really thankful for everyone that's been supporting this and it's
Speaker 3: going to be good to get back out there.
Speaker 2: And you know, we'll all be following along the beautiful
Speaker 2: journey on socials, no doubt. We love your social media
Speaker 2: here at Blackwatt or just so and down to earth
Speaker 2: and just a really good vibe. So all up and
Speaker 2: down the East Coast not quite at wa and how
Speaker 2: nice to go back home and play with the mob
Speaker 2: there and kind of come back after this whole journey. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's too neat well, Jeremy and Tom, it's been so
Speaker 2: lovely to connect with you too today and to learn
Speaker 2: more about what goes on behind the scenes. And congratulations
Speaker 2: again on your new album and.
Speaker 1: Can't wait to see you at the corner.
Speaker 3: I'll be there, yes, bring it on.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the chat, great, thank you, Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. You mob.
Speaker 2: If you are vibing this season of yarning up, then
Speaker 2: please head over to Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get
Speaker 2: your podcasts from to show us some love, rate and review. Alternatively,
Speaker 2: you can get in contact and give us some feedback
Speaker 2: by visiting www. Dot carolinecow dot com dot au