The reunification of sibling songbirds Angus and Julia Stone has put bad blood to bed, writes Andrew Murfett.

WHEN Angus and Julia Stone parted ways in April last year, the brother-and-sister duo were exhausted to the point of defeat. Unable to communicate with each other as musicians - let alone siblings - they appeared finished as a musical entity.

They were three months into a spirit-sapping American tour, which had followed almost two years of promoting their 2007 debut album A Book Like This. Their musical union had started to disintegrate.

So Angus flew home to Australia, tossed a swag over his shoulder and began camping and surfing around the east coast. Julia flew to New York. The two would not speak for five months.

Today, more than a year on, Angus and Julia have experienced an extraordinary reversal of fortunes. Their second album Down the Way is the biggest-selling Australian album of 2010, selling about 120,000 copies since its release in March. Their current tour, which lodges in Melbourne's Palais Theatre for three nights next week, is a box-office blockbuster.

Their folk-inspired, acoustic-based songs, many of which resemble ethereal ballads, have endeared them to a vast, diverse audience of fans.

In person, the difference in each sibling's temperament is clear. Julia, 26, is warm, friendly and talkative, while hirsute Angus, 24, whose hair is currently threatening to grow over his eyes, is polite but reserved. Julia speaks of a passion for live music and describes performing as almost a calling. Angus openly fantasises about returning to his old job labouring. He doesn't ''do'' email. He has phases where he may have a mobile phone for three months. Then, for just as long, he goes off the grid.

''Angus doesn't need to say a lot to say a lot,'' Julia says, as her brother sits outside the inner-Sydney cafe in which she is sipping tea. ''He deals with everything in a much different way to me. I need to talk to get things out.''

For all their differences, both now speak of their break-up last year as an inevitability.

''Our world is so fast-paced and driven,'' Julia says.

''Sometimes you just lose perspective on what you're doing.''

The two, along with sister Catherine, 28, were steered towards music from an early age. Their parents, John and Kim Stone, played as a folk duo before Kim became a full-time mother and John a builder, then music teacher.

John continued playing in a covers band, Backbeat, and the Stones looked forward to rehearsals in the garage of the family home in Newport, on Sydney's northern beaches, each Tuesday night.

All three Stone children were in John's classes at Newport Primary and, in subsequent years, Barrenjoey High School, where he still teaches - and where his offspring returned on Sunday to play a show in the gym for about 1200 members of the school community.

For Julia, three events in her teenage years shaped her early songwriting. First, her parents separated. Second, she fell in love for the first time. Finally, she discovered, on an overseas trip with Angus following her first, tumultuous break-up, that her brother was writing some nifty pop songs.

Julia had also been writing and the two began playing split sets. After seeing an early show, Cathy Oates, an aunt of the Stones and, handily, a former head of marketing at EMI, offered to manage them.

Their first two EPs, released in 2005 and 2006 respectively, sold more than 35,000 copies. A Book Like This moved about 100,000 units.

The two were by then leading a transient existence, relocating for a time to London and Los Angeles while touring heavily through Europe and North America. Which is how they remain. Although neither has a fixed address, both have storage spaces in Sydney, LA and London.

''I do think about when I had a home and a closet and a bed of my own and that definitely appeals,'' Julia says.

Despite their success, it seems obvious in hindsight how things could go so wrong.

While touring, the group (they tour as a four-piece) were constantly playing together and writing songs and their second album was almost completed by April last year, when Julia experienced an epiphany.

Standing on stage, going through the motions, she began wondering what she was doing with her life. The next morning in Chicago, the two had it out.

''I was at the point I couldn't go on,'' she says. ''We were so unhappy on the road. So we said, 'Let's just stop'. We cancelled all commitments and tried to be happy again.''

The two walked away courageously from a promising overseas tour and a near-finished record their label was expecting eagerly.

Julia spent her time in exile living in New York, slowly recording a solo album. Then, one day, she received a call from her mother. Her grandfather had passed away.

''I didn't want to face my family,'' she says. ''He was the first person we'd lost.''

In the next few days, Angus called too, from Byron Bay, also unsure whether to attend. In the end, both flew home to Sydney.

They decided to play a song at the funeral: Old Friend. Angus wrote it four years earlier when he discovered his grandpa had Alzheimer's. After practising together for the first time in five months, both eventually let their guards down.

''It was an intense, powerful moment,'' Julia says. ''It brought us closer. I realised how much I love Angus and love making music with him.''

Angus adds: ''Coming back, I realised Julia is more of a friend than a sister.''

After the funeral, they returned to the US together and recorded Old Friend (included as a ''secret'' track on Down the Way).

The album came together quickly. And the Boys and current single Hold On were poached from Julia's solo album. Big Jet Plane, which would become the duo's biggest hit, was taken from Angus's solo release.

Down the Way topped the ARIA album chart and helped build their international profile, with several tracks even scoring airplay on Grey's Anatomy.

Asked where their music sits in the firmament of youthful, folk-inspired acts such as Laura Marling and Mumford & Sons, Julia blanches.

''Music is music,'' she says. ''If a style gets popular for some reason, fine. I'm not highbrow about it. I believe every music form has its place. It's so beyond me to reason why something is popular.''

Somewhat remarkably, this photogenic double act are both single, each having experienced a recent break-up.

''I'm envious of my friends who have the stillness and time to find someone and build a foundation,'' Angus says.

''Any job you have is a challenge to your relationships. But it's still possible, if love is strong enough, to be on the other side of the world.''

Julia in particular has clearly used songwriting to ruminate on failed relationships.

''People must think I have some serious emotional issues because my songs are all slightly disturbed,'' she says.

One of the highlights of their current live show is a new, untitled track Julia plays, dissecting her last relationship's failure in a raw, unflinching manner. Spoiler alert: he cheats.

''Each night I'm telling thousands of people about the past three weeks of my life and it's blatantly honest,'' she says.

''There's no filter. I stand there and think about how 'out there' this is. There's no shield between what I'm experiencing and the rest of the world. I feel like I've grown up so much in the past few weeks.''

In line with this, Julia is eager to pursue a mantra of no more drama and believes her last break-up may even help her band's longevity.

''I was so caught up in the drama of love,'' she says.

''My love affairs have been driving me and controlling me for years. It affects my stability. This [break-up] gave me perspective to be a more functional human being.''

Which is good news, because the band have a full diary until October 2012 and a book of songs ready for album three. After that?

''I won't be doing this forever,'' Angus says. He would one day like to work with his hands again.

''A lot of friends are carpenters or plumbers,'' he says.

''They see it as a bizarre twist of fate, what's happened to me. Maybe I'll start digging holes again.

''I really liked it. At the end of the day, everything tasted better. And sleep was just like heaven.

''I'm envious of people with a trade. They work damn hard but there's so much reward in it.''

As for Julia, her solo album The Memory will soon be sold via the pair's live shows.

''The songs are a little darker, maybe a bit creepier,'' she says.

''I'm enjoying the benefits of not having an attachment to anything.''

Angus and Julia Stone play the Palais Theatre, St Kilda, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and Meeniyan Hall on Saturday and Sunday.