Healer: The Rise, Fall and Return of Tumbleweed

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With their long hair and fuzzed-up guitars, Tumbleweed rose out of the ashes of late-80s Indie band The Proton Energy Pills. Just over a year after their 1990 birth, they’d recorded with Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, scored a support slot on Nirvana’s only Australian tour (just as the grunge wave hit) and signed a US record deal.

The Wollogong band hit their peak of popularity in the wake of the 1995 album Galactaphonic. And then proceeded to shoot themselves in the foot. Guitarist Paul Hausmeister got the sack, and then drummer Steve O'Brien left in protest.

From there the band went downhill, chopping and changing band members, releasing albums that met an increasingly uninterested public and playing shows where there were maybe a half-dozen people in the crowd. So it was no surprise when they called it quits in 2001.

That was supposed to be it for Tumbleweed. With the acrimony that swirled around the members for years afterwards, it was hard to ever see the hometown fans’ wishes of a reformation come true. But in 2009 they managed to heal their wounds and reunite, releasing their fifth studio album a few years later and survive the sudden death of bassplayer Jay Curley.

Journalist and music writer Glen Humphries has interviewed the members of Tumbleweed numerous times and, in Healer, takes the first complete look at the band’s career.