Carus plays Ric’s Café on Tuesday and The Alley on Wednesday.
“I’ve just moved to Melbourne with a friend, Nicky Bomba,” explains acoustic singer, songwriter and now band-leader Carus explains. “I haven’t had a house for about a year. I’ve just been a vagrant, so it’s nice to have a room. I’ve been touring pretty non stop. We used to tour from Perth up to Darwin and the north west, and it’s been hard to have a house. It’s a waste of money.”
Not only does Carus now have a roof over his head, he’s relocated completely to the other side of the country. Not an insignificant decision, by any stretch of the imagination, but certainly a good move from a musical point of view.
“I love Perth, and it’s a cool place and all my family is there, but there’s no real scene in Perth. People talk about a Perth music scene, but it doesn’t really exist. There’s musicians, but there’s not really a scene as such. And it was just too far away in Perth from what’s happening on the East Coast. Melbourne’s more a songwriting town. People like Paul Kelly and all those crew live down in St Kilda, and you can see them every week. All people I really look up to. It’s really inspirational.”
While Carus has been in his share of bands, it’s the time he’s spent working as a soloist as well as fronting his own act that has focused his sights on what he really wants from his music. His self-titled release and subsequent Mind’s Eye releases are both testament to his drive to write the best songs he can put together.
“It’s getting back more to writing good songs and presenting in a way that does them justice,” he explains. “Give them a bit of energy, stuff like that. With the set now I start out solo and it’s a bit folky, and then the band come in, and by the end we could be ripping out Hendrix covers.”
“I’ve had some really good experiences solo. I did the last John Butler Trio tour, and played some shows with Jack Johnson with some really big crowds. I really like to play solo, because it’s all about your songs with nothing to rest on. All I’ve got are the songs.”
