John & T.J. Osborne (photo by Eric Ryan Anderson)
What will the gig be like? I investigated some recent live performances and found the band’s“Tiny Desk” concert from a couple months back. What’s plain to see is the knack for storytelling, brotherly harmonies, and gang vocals that have scorched the country charts for the past several years. But with the Nashville sheen of their country radio hits removed, The Brothers Osborne shine in a different light, showcasing John Osborne’s blistering instrumental solos. They’ll be bringing that in tow with T.J. Osborne’s basement-velvet vocals, heard on hits such as“It Ain’t My Fault” and“Stay a Little Longer.”
The Brothers Osborne may be best known for churning out anthemic melodies today, but they may be more remembered for trailblazing LGBTQ movement within the country music industry, along with pioneers such as Miley Cyrus and Lil Nas X. In February of this year, T.J. Osborne became the first openly gay artist signed to a major country label when he came out publicly in aTime magazine profile. We caught up with him ahead of The Brothers Osborne’s July 30th gig in Beantown.
Allston Pudding: You and your bandmate/brother John grew up in a small fishing town called Deale in Maryland. What can you say about your childhood growing up there and getting into music?
T.J. Osborne: Deale. It’s one of those towns right in between the area anyone would consider the South and it’s probably a little too South to be considered North. Kind of a no-man’s-land. But a beautiful place nonetheless. There’s a joke that there’s more boats than people, and I think that’s true, although I haven’t counted both.
AP: Who are your influences as a singer?
T.J.: I would say Merle Haggard, early on, was a huge influence for me as a singer. I still revere him as a lot of people do. There’s especially a particular era where his voice was just so smooth, his vibrato would just chime in this way that always made the hair stand up on my arms. And then, surprisingly, a singer that I always try to emulate although clearly, for obvious reasons have never come close, but I’ve always loved, is Vince Gill.
AP: I heard you play stand-up bass. Do you still play that or bring it out for shows?
T.J.:Ah, it’s so funny. You’ve obviously done your homework. It’s kind of funny you even know that, but no, I don’t bring it out for shows. The interesting thing with the upright [bass] is, even though I’m not known for being an upright player and I haven’t played upright in years, I kind of credit the upright for being the thing that actually kept me in Nashville. I do wonder: Had I never played the upright bass, would I actually be where I am now?
The reason for that is, when I first moved to Nashville I was 18, I [was] excited — I was a big fish in a small pond, and then I moved here and that obviously reversed. Suddenly it was like, wow, I was suddenly just so overwhelmed. So many people, especially coming from a small town. It was overwhelming and then not to mention the abundance of extremely talented people. I remember I was about to move back to Deale, and then I got a gig playing for bluegrass artistAlecia Nugent.
She’s a great bluegrass singer… so I got the call to play upright for her, and so that kept me here in Nashville. I likely would have moved home had I not gotten that gig playing upright. Those were the first times I got to play the Grand Ole Opry, tour a little bit around Europe… And after that, it got me a little bit more time to digest being here [in Nashville].
AP: You recently sang with Miley Cyrus at her pride concert. How did you get in touch with her for that? How did that come about?
T.J.: I guess because I came out and I think she wanted some people that were… I’m just assuming here I don’t know her thought process, but it was very Tennessee driven as far as, this is where she grew up, and she has a lot of roots here, and I think she wanted some people who live in this state I suppose. And some country people.
And obviously, some people who were allies and then also people who were gay to perform and I obviously recently came out… I don’t know if it was her idea or someone threw out the idea of getting us to perform. But either way we got invited to join.
The crazy thing is, we were almost unable to do it. I was like “Shit are you kidding me with this?! It would be so fun, like so incredible.” As we prepared for getting back on the road again, we almost had to turn down the [concert]. Then eventually we moved some things around in our schedule and we could do it.
Photo by Natalie Osborne
But uhm man, she was awesome. It’s one of those things where, like once you meet her and see how she works: It’s like ‘WOW.’ I mean it’s no surprise why she’s this massive global superstar. Just seeing her, it was very inspiring. She’s incredibly kind and I found her to be very humble. One of those people, like as soon as [I met] her, I kind of felt like we were friends for, awhile. It was weird in that way and in a very lovely way. Then, just seeing her work and the people that work around her, it was all it was so professional.
Then obviously, I hadn’t performed very much… And then of course, walking out to a bunch of allies or people who were in the LGBTQ community. We’re walking out to a queer audience and also wow, what a fucking cool way to be not only welcomed into this community, but just what an incredible way to be welcomed back into performing live after being gone for a year and a half.
AP: So, in the Time magazine profile piece in February where you came out publicly, I’m curious what, if anything, inspired you to choose that moment to tell your story?
T.J.: I’ve been talking about this a little bit, as we’ve been going out and playing and I think it’s just like anything. You can’t sit and wait for the perfect time. There’s never a perfect time for anything. At some point in time [I] just have to. I thought, the time is now.
I always wanted to come out at the height of my career and I was always afraid that it would be seen as potentially opportunistic in any way. There was, I mean, God, I mean, immense amounts of thought and time and just playing scenarios out of what it would look like to avoid [looking opportunistic]. So I wanted to have success first. Not to mention, unfortunately we still live in an era where I think it’s hard for people to be openly gay and to climb the ranks and obviously we got to a point to where, hopefully that is not a thing anymore, and get to a place where I can have influence and have that success that I wanted to have.
The other thing I was worried about was like, well, how the hell do you know when you’re at the height of your career? I mean, you don’t know until you’re on your way down.
I don’t think it is, but it dawned on me. I mean, it is absolutely a possibility that the height of my career is now. Who the hell thinks it is? … The worst is if you’re on your way down and then you deal with it. Seems like you’re jumping the shark a little.
Then I thought to myself, why wouldn’t I want to get to the height of my career being completely open about who I am? I think I have been very open about my feelings and my beliefs but I haven’t been open about myself. I want to get to the peak of my career with just being completely, absolutely, 100% myself. So I just thought “now is the time.”
Also quarantine highlighted to me what little I need in life. That if I did potentially lose it all, it would suck, but I would still have the basic things that I need to have fun and enjoy my life, which is not very much.
AP: So now that you’re back on the road you played Georgia the other night, how was it seeing fans again and has the experience changed at all?
T.J.: It is good seeing fans again and, I think the experience has certainly changed for me since coming out…. the fact I was able to be myself and maybe talk about some things with more complexity or depth. The songs, the inspiration for them. I felt that it made the show better, it made the show more interesting and less on the surface.
I was referencing Merle Haggard and Vince Gill [earlier]. These artists were able to talk about their inspiration for songs and how they got there. There’s those back stories that I think most music fans love so much. The fact that I’ve never been able to truly have that until now. It’s such a liberating feeling creatively. So, that’s changed a lot.
We played in one area that was extremely conservative, and you look out at the crowd and you see someone waving a Pride flag or they’ve got a Pride shirt on and it’s like ‘damn this is fucking cool.’ Like, that’s the best thing about music in my opinion is bringing people together and the fact that we’re able to do it in that way is, I mean, it’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life. So yeah, it’s gotten so much more fun in my opinion.
Not to mention that besides the gay thing, it’s also just being able to play. I mean we put a record out in October called Skeletons and we made that record so we could perform it live and then obviously, we didn’t get the chance to perform for like a year and a half. So being able to go out and play some of the songs and see how those fans are responding to them and see if it’s working.
So that’s been fun. Now that we also have basically two more hits or radio songs and singles under our belt [it’s] made our sets more fun to move sauce around and change our sets up. I’m excited about it. We actually spent the past 3-4 days working on our tour in rehearsals and production and I feel just great about it. Before it was always like, “OK, we can play [our set] this long, but it was spreading our butter a little thin” and always felt like we had to come up with a creative way of doing something like a cover or something to not lose the crowd in this lull. I do feel like now we’re in a place now where I’m like, “OK now we have a good set to go out there and play our own shit.”
AP: How do you choose a single when you’ve got a new batch of songs?
T.J.: I think being able to perform the songs live is for us the biggest [indicator for a single]. I mean clearly it’s like what other testing do you need to do if thousands of people go crazy for a song they’ve never heard? It makes it pretty obvious.
Then the other thing is that sometimes you think “this song is going to kill live” and then you play it and it just never connects. So, we’ve had that happen too.
AP : Yeah, well, you’re about to get a lot of “road testing” for your songs.
T.J.: Yeah, we need it!
AP: T.J. I appreciate your time with the interview. This has been great.
T.J.: Likewise, and thanks again for your time.
The Brothers Osborne are currently on tour and playing the Leader Bank Pavilion on July 30th in Boston. Tickets are available here.