Thomas Busby and Jeremy Marou know first hand the highs and lows of forging a career in Australian music — particularly out of regional Queensland.
In one of the most challenging periods Australian music has ever faced, they're hoping to help other artists navigate the tricky industry and share their sound.
The duo, originally from Rockhampton, say starting from a regional base comes with a unique set of challenges, but some can be used to artists' advantage.
"The way we came through the ranks in Rocky, we were away enough from the [main] music scene that we were away from the influence, and that actually worked in our favour," Thomas says.
"Growing up in regional Australia, you only had old fellas playing with beatbox machines. Jeremy and I came along with a couple of guitars and harmonies, telling stories … people loved it.
"Over the course of the albums and the career you start feeling that [industry pressure] a little bit, but you have to remind yourself to back yourself and get back to the roots, remember how we started out."
"We didn't really have anyone to show us what life was going to be like, and it does get quite hectic," Jeremy adds.
The pair have been sifting through hundreds of applications to find a local artist to mentor and provide guidance to, in the hopes of keeping the Australian music industry strong and growing in difficult and unpredictable conditions.
"You can be the best musician in the world, and you can jump on stage in front of people and go to water," Jeremy says.
"I remember we used to play five to seven times a week in Rocky at every pub," Thomas adds.
"But at our first ever original gig, we thought we were going to be the greatest band of all time. We thought we had experience, but we had cover band experience playing to our drunk friends ... we learned some huge things that day.
"Jeremy's guitar broke, we had to fumble our way through.
"And the crowd were forgiving, but the amount of lessons you learn from making mistakes in front of people, that only happens with live performance experience."
The duo is the latest big name to join Wild Turkey's Music 101 mentorship program, launched after a survey found almost three-quarters of aspiring Australian musicians were considering giving up on a career in music because of a lack of live performance opportunities since the COVID pandemic.
The survey of hundreds of Australian musicians found that almost 90 per cent of artists believe it's harder to break into the music industry than it was before the pandemic, and almost 40 per cent still haven't been able to secure a live gig since lockdowns and restrictions were lifted.
Busby Marou will play an intimate gig in regional Queensland during their Tiny Towns tour featuring their chosen mentee, giving them the opportunity to perform live as part of a professional touring production.
QMusic CEO Kris Stewart says live music at smaller and regional venues was one of the first things to go as part of cost-cutting measures.
That filters through to the industry more broadly, creating a cycle of less entry-level performance opportunities, less chance for growth, less work for technical staff forcing them to leave the industry and so on.
"At the end of the day, supporting live music supports people, because it takes people to put it on," he says.
"It's about a percentage of your ticket going directly back into people's hands, especially when you're seeing local and Australian artists.
"It hopefully makes a lot of sense for people to search in Townsville, Cairns, in the Whitsundays, to find those local venues because in every regional Queensland city, there are people still fighting that fight and wanting to play their part in protecting and supporting Queensland music."
Australian acts absent from music charts
It's been well-documented that live shows were heavily impacted by the pandemic, but now music lovers and industry commentators are noticing that there's also a significant lack of green and gold in local music charts.
Earlier this month, The Music highlighted in an interview with Adelaide's Peach PRC that just two Australian artists have made it to the top of the ARIA album charts this year. Only a handful of Australian records have made it to the ARIA singles chart so far in 2023, barely any in the top 10.
For the week of May 22, just three Australian records featured in ARIA's top 50 albums chart — albums from The Amity Affliction, Kate Ceberano and a recently released live recording of Midnight Oil at the Old Lion from 1982.
For the same week, just one Australian artist features in the top 50 singles chart — Vance Joy's Riptide, released a decade ago.
So — where are all our Aussie artists in the Aussie charts?
Podcaster, presenter and music content expert Nic Kelly says local acts have strong fan bases, but new-release Australian songs just aren't being listened to at the same rates as international artists.
"It matters because this [ARIA charts] is truly the aggregator of what is actually being listened to, from a strictly data and analytical perspective," he says.
"You could argue that Spotify charts are maybe more representative because that doesn't include sales which are weighted much heavier than the streams, but that chart looks very similar."
Nic says it's not a question of the quality or ability of Australian musicians — but it is a uniquely Australian problem, with the UK charts well-stocked with UK artists and American charts dominated by US musicians.
"Australians have put out some of the best music in the world over the last 10 years," he says.
"There's been some remarkable releases and they're finding their audiences, they're just not somehow converting over to being massive success stories. That's where the concern is."
QMusic's Kris Stewart believes it has never been more difficult for Australian artists to boost their profiles among home audiences.
"Over the last few years, it's arguably been easier to break internationally than it has locally," he says.
"One of the real challenges we're going to see is if we can't really proactively make sure it is Australian artists first on our airways and streaming platforms and broadcast mediums, we're just going to give people less and less opportunities to discover artists."
Nic agrees.
"If you go into a bigger market, you've got more of a chance of finding an audience to get your music to and then bring it back into Australia," he says.
"We need to make music in this country - and we are, it's not in the charts though - that feels like us and feels like our multicultural, multi-background experience."
