Two ridiculously happily married couples – now that’s not very rock’n’ roll!
Formed in 2016, the Double Happiness are Simon [Welchman] on drums, [Meg] Welchman on vocals and bass guitar, and married schoolteachers (and parents of five kids) Kristin and Pete Fergusson. Kristin, a maths teacher at Fortitude Valley’s Music Industry College, and Pete, a teacher at St Mark’s Catholic Primary School at Inala in Brisbane’s southwest, compose all the songs, sing and play guitar.
The band has provided Welchman with a “positive blast of creativity”. Sharing a love of the live music scene, Welchman and Kristin Fergusson, 49, have known each other since the early 1990s.
Kristin and Pete, 51, of Springfield Lakes, in Brisbane’s outer southwest, are long-time Brisbane musos from various bands.
They played at the Welchmans’ wedding at Lennox Head, south of Byron Bay, in 2002 and the couples crossed paths at various music gigs over the years.
In 2015, Welchman and Kristin bumped into each other at community radio station 4ZZZ’s 40th birthday event at the Brisbane Festival. Welchman, seizing an opportunity, suggested they have a jam. Within a couple of weeks, they did and the Double Happiness was formed.
“That smile and that joy … that has always been there. That’s trademark Meg,” Kristin says. “She’s defied so many tough situations and without a doubt her positivity makes a difference. Meg embraces every opportunity and the chance to get the most out of our every moment. She has taught us all so much about living.
“She’s described that fear of the cancer chasing her, that it’s in the rear-view mirror … but she just accepts the next step in the treatment and off she goes. It’s an incredible approach. She never stops living in the moment, loving her kids, going to work, being with friends. “Cancer has never got in the way of her squeezing the joy out of every single moment.”
The Double Happiness meets all the values that Welchman determined she wanted to embrace – creativity, courage and connection.
The Double Happiness has also been a source of “endless possibilities” for setting goals going forward.
“And it’s a lot of fun,” Simon says. “You look at Meg’s smiles and you can see she is loving the whole gig.”
Extract from original article on Meg in the QWeekend April 5, 2019:
by Elissa Lawrence, The Courier-Mail