TOM: What does music mean to you?
Jeremy Marou: I’m from a big Torres Strait Islander family, so I guess for me, it’s somewhat a way of culture. I grew up where there were guitars around all the time, every Torres Strait Islander man can play the guitar, so for me it’s just a way of living. I guess now I’m doing it full time, it’s literally a way of living. At the end of the day it’s something that I love doing and it’s a way of life.

TOM: Being an integral part of Indigenous culture, did you grow up with your whole family playing music?
Jeremy Marou: Yeah, my whole family plays music. I grew up in a big family; a lot of my cousins and other family members lived with us.  In Rockhampton because of the boarding schools there, they’d come down from the islands to visit. At one point, there were 10 boys living in one massive big room. We all could play guitar, there was a drum kit set up and a piano and anything else that we could find. It was a very competitive lifestyle, who was a better guitarist, who was a better drummer.

TOM: Well that’s always a good way to improve isn’t it?
Jeremy Marou: I was 6,7,8,9, 10 years old. I played the drums before I played the guitar- I prefer to play drums too by the way. I remember having an argument with my brother and told him I could play the guitar better than him… I’m better than him now anyway and it’s been that way ever since!

TOM: You started playing very early! Was music always something you wanted to pursue?
Jeremy Marou: Not necessarily, regardless of what I ever did in life music was always going to be a part of it; you know, I was always going to be sitting around a campfire at night with the family. It wasn’t until I met Tom (Busby), that music became serious. In the last 5-6 years, I guess Tom really put it on me that we can do this, we can make a living from music; let’s write these original songs and put a band together and do what we’re doing now… and people are really digging it! Like I said, music was always going to be a part of my life but in terms of doing it full time and professionally I guess that was Tom’s influence on me.

TOM: Take me back to the beginning, how did Busby meet Marou?
Jeremy Marou: Tom is a couple of years older than me and we knocked around with the same group of friends. Although Tom and I weren’t best friends growing up at school or anything, we knew of each other and we’d have a beer and say g’day. As we got older and our mates sort of left to move down to bigger towns, Tom and I were left there. Tom had just finished University and I was still at University and we just started playing some pub gigs on weekends to make a bit of extra coin.  From that we started working on some of Tom’s originals and I guess the rest is history from there! I mean we recorded an EP and then the album and we’ve done it full time for 2 years now!

TOM: How did you find beginning your music career in Rockhampton?

Jeremy Marou: Even when Tom and I started playing in the pubs, there were just no live bands; I mean we were it! There were a lot of older guys that were playing with backing tracks and drum machines and all that sort of crap- but for me that’s not live. I guess we were the first people in Rocky to sit down with two acoustic guitars and actually sing songs, what you hear is what you get. I can’t count the number of times Tom and our manager Josh have said “you’re going to have to move to Brissy” but I guess I’ve proven that wrong- you can make it in the music industry from a regional town and a regional area. We sort of put our success down to the way Rocky has supported us.

TOM: I definitely feel your new album “Farewell Fitzroy” is paying a lot of respect to exactly that, your home.
Jeremy Marou: Yeah we are! Although we’re not saying “see ya Rocky, we’re better than you” even the title of the album is paying homage to Rocky for getting us where we are. Now we’re going to take our music and travel the world with it. I mean if people want to get technical saying you’re leaving Rocky, I’ll say I’ll still live in Rocky, which I do, I still live there. We’re proud of it, we love our home town.

TOM: Busby Marou’s songwriting has been noted as true Australian storytelling; talk me through the songwriting process for the new album?
Jeremy Marou: Well, Tom’s the lyricist, he comes up with the words. I rate him as one of the best around in terms of knowing how to put words together; he’s so good at how he does it. It’s good for the band too, because we’ll be like, “I wonder what this song is about” and then he’ll tell us and we’ll be like “ahhhhh”. Tom will usually come up with some words around a chorus and from that I might change the melody line, put a bridge in, add some verses… look, we have no set rules on how we write songs! I sat next to a lecturer at a University giving advice to students on songwriting, this happened the other day actually; he was saying a song has to have a verse, a turn around, a bridge, a hook… that’s not true! I think as long as a song has some sort of melody about it, then it’s a song. If you listen to our songs, they’re not necessarily songs with bridges and choruses, but they’re still great listening songs!

TOM: For your previous releases, you recorded in Pete Murray’s studio in Byron Bay, how did you find recording in Nashville for “Farewell Fitzroy?”
Jeremy Marou: The entire process was different. In comparison to our first album where we tracked everything individually, compressed everything, used auto-tune and used different effects on every single instrument that was tracked separately, with this album it was just all of us in one room playing, together. We just put a mix on it at the end and that’s what we came up with. It was very different, and at times I was thinking, is this actually going to come together… but we put our trust in Brad Jones as the producer, and he’s come up with some great sounding music.

TOM: You had some incredible people come and play on the album in Nashville didn’t you?

Jeremy Marou: Yeah we did, Joe Robinson, he’s an Australian dude! I rate him as one of the best guitarists in the world, he’s very young but so amazing! Al Perkins as well, he’s a world renowned pedal player; he played on The Beatles album Abbey Road! To have those guys just pop into the studio and play on our tracks is something you don’t get in Australia and that’s one of the big benefits about recording in Nashville.

TOM: Did you feel a little intimidated by the musicianship in Nashville or were you feeling right at home?
Jeremy Marou: They were really nice people. Obviously, Joe Robinson we’d knocked around with a bit in Australia and done shows with him here and there. The other guys, we were like “wowwwwww” but just having them around was awesome. It was a lot of fun.

TOM: It’s got much more of country tinge to it compared to previous Busby Marou songs, was that intentional or do you think Nashville influenced you while you were there?

Jeremy Marou: I don’t think it was intentional, maybe it was from Nashville, who knows! I mean, I’m a country guitarist, if I play something it will naturally sound country although it might not be a country song. Tom will never deliver a song with a country twang so I guess I put it down to the way I play guitar and our harmonies have that country feel to them too. At the end of the day, that’s the beauty to our music, we can support Dolly Parton, Tim McGraw and then go and support Pete Murray, Birds of Tokyo and KD Lang… it crosses the realm of so many genres.

TOM: In the lead up to the album release, I saw you had tracks off the album hidden on your website, what a great idea, how did that come about?
Jeremy Marou: I have to be honest and say that I don’t know- I have no idea! It might have been someone from Warner’s idea to put a track hidden on the website. I actually went and looked for it yesterday; I don’t even know where it is. Do you know where it is?

TOM: No! I haven’t found it either!
Jeremy Marou: I was doing it on my iPhone and couldn’t find it, so I thought stuff it. I thought they would have done it around Easter time the whole treasure hunt thing… that was a bad joke, sorry!

TOM:  The new album has been released to the world now, you must be happy to have the new songs out?
Jeremy Marou: Mate, we’re over the moon! We toured so much last year and we got sick of playing all the songs off the old album; they’re a lot of fun, but we’re ready to play some new material. We’re very excited about the new single getting some airplay, with that happening and the new album release and the tour it’s all sort of coming together. It’s really exciting!

TOM: To sum “Farwell Fitzroy” up, where would you say all the inspirations came from, what’s it all about?
Jeremy Marou: I think basically the experience thus far- all the travel we’ve done since the first album, the feelings we’ve experienced , the time of being away from home and family and the ones we love, relationships we’ve been through, the ups and downs of break ups, the new relationships, the ones that only last a couple of hours…. all of the above! Everything we’ve experienced since we first started touring. Clearly the time in Nashville too, a couple of the songs were very spontaneous.

TOM: You’ve both played together as “Busby Marou” for many years now, what do you think has been the highlight so far?
Jeremy Marou: It’s a hard one; I was actually talking about this with my brother the other day. We’re big footy fans, so  when we did the State of Origin where we were in the middle of the field performing, to play like that and then sit on the bench afterwards with the players, I think that would be one of my highlights. Maybe even supporting Dolly Parton too, she’s a superstar! For us though, it’s probably about going back to Rocky or to Brisbane, Rocky in particular, where we’ll play to people who are all singing the words and we know nearly every single person there; playing to our family and friends is probably better than anything.

TOM: If you had to personally sell the new album to someone on the street and tell them why they should buy it, what would you say? Or how would you do it?

Jeremy Marou: That would depend on who I was trying to sell it to. I would probably say, there’s nothing better than hearing a guitar and two male voices harmonising; basically this is what the album is about, that’s the bread and butter of it.

TOM: I have to say, the intertwining of the vocals and guitars are definitely what makes “Busby Marou” special!
Jeremy Marou: Yeah exactly, you can get two girls harmonizing together and they sound sweet, but when you get two men singing together, there’s something powerful about that!