“Intimate event” to launch Island album

Australian songwriter and accomplished storyteller Carus Thompson returns to Bunbury with his latest album Island.

Recorded with Eskimo Joe’s Joel Quartermain, Island came to be after 10 years of hitting the road through Europe.

“I was always on the road and my last three records were all mixed in Nashville but were all written about travel,” he said.

“But for this one, I had just had two kids – for the first time in my whole life I wasn’t always on the road.” Thompson said he drew inspiration for Island from legendary artists such as Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp.

“I loved the way those guys write – they tell simple suburban stories, but they make the story epic,” he said.

“I wanted to do that with Australian stories – basically I looked around me and wrote about what I saw and it ended up being this concept record about where we are in Australia at the moment.

“There are songs about refugees, methamphetamines, simple songs about housing prices going up and some personal ones in there as well – but it is the most story-telling record I have ever written.”

Thompson will play at 3Ciana as part of Good Nights tomorrow to release the album’s third single Crash Land and promised to make the intimate gig “an event”.

“There is a beginning, middle and an end, and when it’s finished, hopefully I have drawn the room together,” he said.

“Live music is a unique thing that happens once and if you are not there, you miss it.”