WHEN a member of your band suffers a heart attack it’s generally not viewed as positive. However, for rising roots duo Busby Marou the recent health scare has delivered a silver lining.
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Three weeks ago Jeremy Marou – one half of Busby Marou with Tom Busby – suffered two heart attacks after playing Oztag in Rockhampton. Ominously his father died from a heart attack at the same field 15 years earlier.
Marou was transferred to Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane where a blocked artery was cleared and a stent inserted. The 34-year-old quickly recovered and is back on the road to promote the duo’s third album Postcards From The Shell House.
“He’s strong, he’s currently beside me pushing two cases at once,” Busby said after touching down at Sydney Airport on Wednesday. “Strangely he’s in better health than ever before. It cleared a blockage he didn’t know he had, he’s got a sleep machine and he’s getting eight hours sleep which feels strange because it’s harder for him to wake up, but once he is, he can’t believe how wide awake he is.”
Busby said Marou’s heart attack had also been a good influence on himself.
“It was a great wake-up for both of us,” he said. “We were probably hitting it a little hard on the tour, burning the candle at both ends.
“Maybe we needed a trigger to become more professional. We want to take the next step, so this next year is slightly massive, but we’re not going too big.”
Business has certainly picked up since Busby Marou’s surprise debut at No.1 on the ARIA charts in February with Postcards From The Shell House. The Rockhampton pair had enjoyed steady success with their self-titled debut (2011) and Farewell Fitzroy (2013), but suddenly they have become one of Australia’s leading roots acts.
“We’d been off the road for a year or two because we got married and had a couple of kids and things changed quite a lot,” Busby said. “We were chomping at the bit to get it back on the road and finally we could actually do something with our music again.
“It felt a little bit weird that the first thing we did was get a No.1. We didn’t expect it because it felt like we’d been away for a while and the first gig we did back in Rocky there was 2,500 people. After that it went crazy.”
That breezy and relaxed Australian attitude is at the heart of Busby Marou, along with the exquisite harmonies the two friends refined when cutting their teeth on Rockhampton’s sleepy pub scene.
“We didn’t try to do anything too special or different from what we’d done in the past, we just wanted to make sure we played to what our strengths are, which are our harmonies and melodies,” Busby said. “We just wanted to make really strong songs.”
Busby Marou perform with The Teskey Brothers on Thursday night at 48 Watt Street.
Josh Leeson
Josh Leeson is an entertainment and features journalist, specialising in music, at the Newcastle Herald. He first joined the masthead in 2008 after stints at the Namoi Valley Independent and Port Stephens Examiner and has previously covered sport including the Asian Cup, A-League, Surfest, cricket and rugby league.
Josh Leeson is an entertainment and features journalist, specialising in music, at the Newcastle Herald. He first joined the masthead in 2008 after stints at the Namoi Valley Independent and Port Stephens Examiner and has previously covered sport including the Asian Cup, A-League, Surfest, cricket and rugby league.
