Airdate: The Sunnyboy

ABC1 screens another music documentary this Sunday night, this time on Jeremy Oxley,  frontman for The Sunnyboys, and his 30 year battle with schizophrenia.

The film premiered at the Sydney Opera House and received a standing ovation and was selected for the Melbourne International Film Festival and has just completed Q&A cinema screenings in most capital cities. It was also recently “longlisted” for the 2013 Walkely Award for Documentary.

When the 50-year-old Jeremy Oxley tentatively walked out on stage at the Enmore Theatre, Sydney, April 2012, he was enveloped by a tsunami of rapturous applause. Jeremy’s ability just to have survived 30 years of living with schizophrenia is remarkable in itself. The courage and the strength he mustered to return to the stage made the performance heroic.

In the early 1980s, at the age of 18, Jeremy Oxley was touted as one of the most talented singer/songwriters in Australia. Front-man of the highly successful pop-rock band The Sunnyboys, Jeremy, along with his older brother Peter (bass guitarist), achieved rapid success. Typical of the music industry at the time, Jeremy quickly became trapped in a cycle of relentless touring and rushed recording sessions. Always protective of his talented little brother, Peter was unable to shield Jeremy from physical and mental burnout. As the creative force in the band, Jeremy shouldered the crushing burden to match the band’s initial success. Little did he or his brother know what was lurking within, how the stress would trigger a downward spiral into the lonely horror of schizophrenia.

Consumed by paranoid and disturbing thoughts, many which were about Peter, Jeremy sought the refuge of drugs and alcohol. Peter was at a loss to understand his brother’s bizarre behaviour which ultimately led to the demise of the band. Unable to accept that he had a mental illness, Jeremy refused medical treatment and the brothers were forced apart.

The Sunnyboy 9:25pm Sunday, 3 November ABC1