Sunnyboys Are Saying Farewell On Their Own Terms

This is it: Sunnyboys are wrapping up their final tour. The beloved Australian band, known for their hits Alone With You, You Need A Friend, Happy Man, and many more, are hanging it up at the Enmore Theatre tomorrow night. The career of Sunnyboys maybe didn't go as planned, but it is a "job well done" for guitarist Richard Burgman.

Today, the band are remembered as heroes of Aussie rock music. In the ten years since their return from a 21-year hiatus, Sunnyboys arguably achieved as much, if not more, as their original lifespan. 

They co-headlined a sold-out A Day On The Green (with Hoodoo Gurus and Violent Femmes), set a venue record at Coolangatta Hotel (previously held by Noiseworks), multiple sold-out nights across Sydney’s Enmore and Factory Theatres, Brisbane’s The Tivoli, and Melbourne’s Corner Hotel. 

From there, the group sold-out further shows at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, Melbourne’s The Forum and Croxton Hotel, Perth Festival, Cairns, Thirroul, Torquay, Byron Bay, Gold Coast, and Sunshine Coast; re-released all three studio albums, released a live DVD and a live album, recorded and released four new tracks, sold countless t-shirts, beanies, caps, hoodies and badges and watched their eponymous debut reach double platinum sales. 

"Of the hundreds of bands, and thousands of people that we knew at the time, we’re one of the few that can stand up and say, 'We were really good at what we did, and we’re really proud of what we did', and we’re lucky enough to still be able to get up and say to people ‘We’re really proud to be able to present this to you now,'" Burgman commented when the band announced the farewell tour.

Richard Burgman is so proud of the band that he can't choose the top five moments in their career. "That's like saying, 'who's your favourite child?' It's almost impossible to choose," he laughs. What's so cool about Sunnyboys is that their music stands the test of time. Their songs still play on Australian radio stations, and those melodies are still so unique. Did Richard think, after 40-something years, that people would be singing Sunnyboys songs in 2023 or hearing them for the first time?

"As a matter of fact, no," Burgman admits. "When we started this thing, Peter [Oxley, bass] and Bill [Bilson, drums] were 20. Jeremy [Oxley, vocals] turned up with all these songs... they had played together in high school bands. And then we had these great songs, and people loved them! People related to the songs and the band, the way we played. We were just really lucky - it was the right people, the right place, and the right time."

From the beginning, fans have held strong personal associations with Sunnyboys music and screamed Jeremy Oxley's lyrics back to him when the band were on stage because the music is so powerful and so engaging. Burgman is stunned by crowd reactions sometimes - even as the same music fan who yells from the top of his lungs at a rock show. "When Jeremy wrote these songs from his own personal experience, he wasn't trying to write songs like anybody else.

"He wasn't trying to be the next AC/DC or the next great thing from England, like the Sex Pistols or The Clash," Burgman explains. And when Sunnyboys took to the stage in the early '80s, it just worked. Burgman played the guitar as well as any other player. It didn't matter that they were beginners when their music was so real.

Burgman believes that his teenage self is the same as who he is now - "you still look for friendship and reasons why or why not, but there probably are a lot of questions that are answered by the time you turn 60 - we found eternal themes and managed to voice them," he says, reflecting on the personal nature of music. "Jeremy is a very talented songwriter. The songs sound simple, but there's bits in the middle that aren't what you would expect," Burgan adds before mentioning the middle chord sequence in Alone With You that comes out of left field, "but it's really good, and nobody else would have thought of it, except Jeremy. It's remarkable."

The band worked extremely hard for the ten years between the Sunnyboys' formation and reaching peak popularity. "The only way a band could get any recognition or any sort of popularity was to go out and play in the pubs, week after week, and drive everywhere," Burgman remarks. The process became a bit mechanical, but the band also became a well-oiled machine used to the realities of touring by the time they found success. 

While he's no longer a young man in the '80s, Burgman has been enjoying the farewell tour - the band feeling strong. "We've decided to go out on our own terms. We don't want to go down the spiral of one member leaving and being replaced and another leaving and being replaced. So, it's all four original members playing the songs the way only we can," he says. And part of their own terms is watching Jeremy Oxley become the Sunnyboy night after night.

In The Sunnyboy, a 2013 documentary that follows Jeremy's 30-year battle with schizophrenia, fans are given insight into survival, hope, and the truth of schizophrenia - not the glamorised or stereotypically evil character from television and film. The misrepresentations often lead to misconceptions about schizophrenia, including the belief that people who suffer from it are violent beings.

"Jeremy [suffers from] early onset adult schizophrenia. It [Early onset adult schizophrenia] usually happens to a young man between the ages of 15 and 25. At 15, there's nothing to matter. By 25, this disease becomes full-blown - it often means these people hear voices telling them to do things," Burgman shares. "So it used to be, you'd see people pacing up and down the street, yelling at the trees and yelling at the sky, and all that, seeking to get them off their medications because of the voices are telling you. Jeremy was hearing the voices from when he was 18.

"We had no idea what was happening. He wasn't properly diagnosed for another 20 years," Burgman explains. Jeremy's wife, Mary Oxley Griffiths, is a nurse who understands what Jeremy goes through and has helped him manage schizophrenia for years. The farewell tour is a big deal and had to be on Sunnyboys' own terms for Jeremy, and for the a band that's always followed their own beat.

"Jermey's not doing any better or getting any younger, and neither are the rest of us, which is why we've decided to call it a day," he continues, the band determined to keep their heads held high and integrity intact. "Jeremy doesn't have a lot of energy or physical strength, but when you put a guitar on him and put him next to a microphone and tell him, 'you're a Sunnyboy,' he just wakes up. He comes alive."

Sunnyboys will play their final show at the Enmore Theatre tomorrow night - Saturday, 18 February - with Painters and Dockers and Paul Berwick's Magnetic Quartet joining in on the fun. The concert is sold-out.