Unsung Heroes: Bunbury resident of 64 years shares his life as a musician, teacher and business owner

From a life on the stage of pubs and clubs across the South West to the trials and tribulations of owning a small record shop, this music teacher has called Bunbury home for 64 years. In 1929 Peter Stanicic’s grandfather packed up his belongings in Croatia and decided to build a new home in regional WA, choosing Bridgetown as his place to settle. Ten years later — in 1939 — the other half of Mr Stanicic’s family who hail from a completely separate part of Croatia decided to do the same, and in a fairytale-like twist the two Croatian families ended up living as neighbours. “That’s how my mum and dad ended up meeting,” Mr Stanicic said. “They didn’t know each other and came from different parts of Croatia and they both ended up with farms in Bridgetown.” “My dad always used to tell us when we were kids that he started working when he was nine . . . he had to go out and earn money to support the family and the only thing he thought to do was to go fishing, so that’s what he did, until he joined the Air Force.” Years later, around 1958, Mr Stanicic’s father took his fishing skills to the City of Bunbury where his son would find his passion for music at Bunbury Catholic College — which was then called Marist Brothers. “Every morning we’d have an assembly before school, they had a set of marching drums and they used to march into school, into class, from the assembly,” Mr Stanicic said. “The drums were the first instrument I played, so I wanted to be a drummer in a band but at that stage there weren’t any drum teachers in Bunbury so I thought I’d play guitar.” Eager to fulfil his new-found musical passion Mr Stanicic, during a visit back to his family’s Bridgetown farm, came across his uncle’s unused guitar. “He’d bought this catalogue guitar as they were in those days, it had a teaching book . . . I brought it home and started teaching myself,” he said. “I had a year’s lessons with a teacher, who used to play piano and guitar and work in the local music shop.” After he finished school, in the late 60s, Mr Stanicic, like most 20-year-olds, was enjoying the local night life — all the while eager to follow his aspirations of joining a band — when he approached the lead guitarist of a band playing at Pinocchio’s nightclub in Bunbury. “They needed a bass player so I swapped over, bought a bass guitar and started to learn to play bass,” he said. “That band was called Aaron’s People, and we were quite a popular band in Bunbury for quite few years.” “I played in a few bands, just playing bass, and during that time in the background I was playing guitar at home. “We just played the hits of the radio of that time, but most of our work was pubs . . . Lots of hotels around Bunbury had bands on Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday sessions, the Burlington Hotel was the big venue in those days.” Enjoying his life a local musician, Mr Stanicic and a fellow band member had heard a rumour one of Bunbury’s main music shops, Musgroves Music, was set to close. At 26 years old the pair jumped at the opportunity to start their own shop and in 1973 along a bustling Stirling Street opened Aabel Music. “It just took off, as soon as we opened up the shop, it just took off,” Mr Stanicic said. “A shop became available in Victoria Street, where LJ Hooker is now, so we moved into there after 18 months . . . I was there for probably 15 years.” Now the sole owner of his business Mr Stanicic decided to move again, this time to Prinsep Street but just two years after the move his beloved shop had gone under, the only silver lining was he could begin to teach again. “I moved to Prinsep Street and that was my downfall for that era it was just a bad move,” he said. “The first year I was there the business was really good, the City council was rescaping Stephen Street and people would come into the shopping centre — Centre Point — would leave and go past my shop. “Once the Spencer Street rescaping was done everyone used the Northern exit and my business went bad.” Taking his ability to teach further up the road, Mr Stanicic set up shop above Wombat Lodge where he had 25 students, but to make ends meet had to take up a job cleaning. “Eventually I concentrated on the cleaning, and as my students started to drop off I didn’t replace them,” he said. “Teaching is good if you’ve got a good student, but most of the time a lot of students only want to learn because their parents push them.” “That’s the big thing about students, it’s motivating them to want to play and want to learn, it’s very rare that you get a student that wants to learn and just absorbs everything you can teach them.” Now sitting quietly, guitars taking up the seats in the house attached to his humble shop along Zoe Street, Mr Stanicic has taken up teaching in a different form, running a ukulele group once a month and helping a man with disability learn to play for 23 years. “Playing music is just what I always wanted to do and help people start their careers off in music, I could close my shop up today and retire quite well but I just like to be in the shop and help people start their career with a guitar,” he said.