By HARRY CLARKE
FOR more than a decade, folk and blues band Busby Marou has been playing around the country and overseas, supporting megastars such as Elton John and Dolly Parton, but they’ll never forget their 2017 gig at little old Chinchilla.
“We played at the Melon Festival Beach Party and it was on the eve of the release of our third album,” frontman Tom Busby told the Caller.
“I couldn’t believe it. The DJ was absolutely pumping and the crowd was flying, and we had to come on after this DJ and I remember thinking ‘this is a bit odd, we gotta come on and sing some folk songs’.
“But we came on and the crowd went ballistic. Our manager was trying to get us to settle down a bit because we were having too much fun and we had the album launch in Rockhampton the next day.
“It was such a good gig.”
WATCH: Busby Marou at Chinchilla Melon Festival 2017.
Such is Busby Marou’s appreciation for a country crowd that, starting Friday night back in Chinchilla and running through until October, the boys from Rocky will be touring several small towns to promote their soon-to-be-released fifth album.
From the Chinchilla RSL, the Tiny Towns Tour will move on to rural centres including Charleville, Ilfracombe, Bowen and Bileola, followed by a second tour taking them through larger centres such as Townsville, Cairns and Newcastle.
“When Busby Marou was just starting out we were still going back and playing weddings and parties and all these remote places all throughout Queensland and then eventually NSW,” Busby said.
[adrotate group=”7″]
“Busby Marou still wasn’t really kicking off and we still didn’t think it was going to a career. But we knew there were all these people from remote areas who we met along the way, coming to watch us play in the cities.
“And we thought ‘no bands our age really go out to these regional area – why don’t we make some phone calls to see if they want it to happen’ and that’s how Tiny Towns was born. That happened about five or six years ago and we’ve done it twice since.
“They are the best gigs. We just throw it out there – who wants us to come to their tiny town? We want to keep doing this throughout out career, all the way to the end.
“It’s really who we are as people. We love those areas, we grew up in those areas and we have connections in these remote areas.
“As the Tiny Towns idea grows, there are more towns that we haven’t heard of that keep getting thrown onto the list. It’s really rewarding.
“Our aim is to take the best show we can, good production, lights, and make people want to stop watching the footy for a moment and watch what we do and then have a few beers with us afterwards.”
[adrotate group=”7″]
Busby Marou’s fifth album, BLOOD RED, is described as the duet’s “most ambitious” released yet, about “hope, optimism and friendship” and will be released on July 21.
Singles ‘Crazy Like That’, ‘Where I Wanna Be’ and ‘Everything is Beautiful’ have been released.
The latest single ‘Conversation’ is a playful jab at social media, with a message to “put down the f**king screens for some good old-fashioned conversation”.
“Everyone’s got a device and it’s about putting the phone down and getting back to those real conversations. If they’re good or bad conversations, who cares, it’s real life,” Busby told the Caller.
“I was lucky enough to grow up when phones weren’t a thing. They kind of came when I was starting to go to uni, and they’re amazing. I’m not being old and cynical about it, but you’ve got to live in the now.
“We’re all trapped in what to show people the moment that we’re in, rather than being in it.”
Busby Marou’s Tiny Towns Tour begins at the Chinchilla RSL tomorrow night (Friday, June 2), and moves on to the Charleville RSL on Saturday, June 3 and the Wellshot Hotel at Ilfracombe onSunday, June 4.