One Of My Favorite Interviews Ever With Brothers Osborne

I've been lucky to chat with John & TJ, Brothers Osborne, a bunch over the years.  I can tell you, they are some of the most kind & genuine humans on this planet.  We started taking new music and tour plans but ended up getting deep.  You GOTTA give this episode a listen because there is a lesson you didn't know you needed to hear.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
It's always a good day when Ican get big old celebrities, music icons,
rock stars in here, and thenother days I got to settle for
Brothers Osmond. Wonder where that wasgoing? Damn, how do we get
out of here? You paid foran hour at parking? Just hang out

(00:23):
with me? John Tisa, howare you guys? How about your life
is good? Man? We goty'all in here. We're talking new music.
I'm going to jump right into themusic creation thing because it feels like
everybody's doing it different than they werefive years ago, whether they're doing it
faster, or they're more focused onone song versus a pile of songs or

(00:46):
so. Over the five years,obviously streaming has changed that, social media
has changed that, COVID change that. So what is different five years ago
from how Brothers Osborne create music tonow? I mean, there's been so
many things put me in especially overten years. You know, we first
got signed, and you know,I think at least for us, I

(01:06):
mean, what we're in the middleof doing now is we're releasing an EP
out in response to just things changingand getting music out there faster. As
a lot of people are releasing musica lot more often, and there's just
so much to listen to and beheard. So on this you know,
this EP we just put out,for instance, has two new tracks on
it, but it's got two tracksfrom the last release we had that we
thought just got overlooked. And mostpeople don't even realize their re releases,

(01:30):
which proves our point. There's somuch music going on, So I think
now we're going to try to changeit up, try to be a little
bit more on our feet with thingsand be able to put music out there
faster because people like to consume stuffso fast. Now knowing that you can
re release a song in the manneryou just explained. You guys, anytime
I've interacted with you or we've talkedmusic or anything like that, like your

(01:53):
heart and I don't want to I'mnot talking ill on anybody else, but
there's something about your heart being intothings you create. Right, Does that
make sense? Like every song feelslike it means more to you than it
Yeah, Well, you invest yourselfinto your art. I think every true
artist does. And you know it'sit's really hard because you put out an
album let's say, eleven songs,and then if you're lucky. You get

(02:15):
two of those songs on the radioand you start moving on to your next
album writing and recording and stuff likethat, and they're like, well,
there are nine of those songs thatI poured my heart out on. And
it's not like you go, ah, this song is pretty cool, so
let's just kind of half asset andmove on to the next one. No,
you treat everyone like they're the mostimportant song to you. And I
think that's just kind of how we'rewired. We can't help it, you

(02:37):
know. And I'll go back andlisten to some songs that even our fans
don't probably love as much as Ido, and I think, man,
I think this is really great.It's like hurts me to know that this
song might never see the get thelove it deserves. You know. It's
like your children, you really lovethem like that. When it comes to
putting out music. What is what'sthe one song that comes to mind when

(02:58):
I say what song is meant themost that didn't connect the way you thought
it did, or better yet,the song you did for you your fans
first, right, But at theend of the day, what's the song
that you did like, Hey,hope they love it, but this one's
for me. There's I mean,I've been a couple of but I'll say,
you know, the thing is,it's is And I guess we did
get attention for it, but youngerme was that way, you know,

(03:20):
a song I would kind of aresponsibility coming out. And then John's own
personal trials and we realized that lifeisn't you know, it's kind of no
one really gets a hall pass inthis world, and it's difficult on us
in so many ways. We're thehardest on ourselves always, and you know,
we released that song. However,it wasn't a single for us,
and as in our most highest streamsong, but it also is a song
that it means so much to aspecific person. It won us our first

(03:42):
Grammy Award, and there's so manyIt just was written from a place where
we weren't thinking about what's going tobe a hit, what's going to be
a party. It was just likewhat do I emotionally need to get out
and and say? And when itconnects to people, it connects in a
way that a lot of other songsdon't own that really really deep level.
But then there's also other songs thataren't as necessarily from an emotional place that

(04:05):
we recorded a song called Weed,Whiskey and Willy that we knew would we
work on a single it. Youknow, It's just we thought it was
a cool country like we love alwayslike having a tip of the hat to
old like kind of more traditional countryon our record, and that song really
became like a crowd favorite if weget asked to play it all the time.
Now, I would have never guessedit was for us. It was
more kind of like, I thinkthat we want to do this. I

(04:26):
don't care what Nashville wants to hear. This is what we want to do.
And it's interesting how sometimes that it'sit ends up being the other way
around. And then inversely, there'ssome times where I'm like, they're gonna
love this and they don't, so, you know, and then you move
on, what's what's the one songout of out of you know, you
named a couple there, but what'sone song that connected that you're still doing
today that you're like every now andagain, elbow yourself like, yeah,

(04:49):
I mean, honestly, read Whiskeyreally is that one? I mean,
when we have a set, it'spretty much for the most part, every
song in this set has been somesort of single or it has had some
attention to it. Most of thesongs that we have built in our sets
a radio singles, and that songNever Again, we never really spent time

(05:11):
promoting it. It just took ona life of its own, and I
think people kind of dig the oldschool six' eight country side of things.
But it also, you know,it talks about the things that we
love most, which is like oldschool country and drinking and smoking weed,
and who doesn't love those three things? And you know, and that's just
part of like us being honest asto who we are, especially who we

(05:34):
were then don't smoke as much asI used to, And I don't know
if it resonated with people, andthere's a bit of nostalgia in it,
and it gets some of the biggestresponses out of any of our songs.
Knowing how much heart you put intowhat you guys create and how things have
changed over time, is there asong that you look back as the guys

(05:56):
that you've grown into individually and togethertoday, you look back at songs you
put out like Brothers Osbourne today wouldn'thave done that then, Yeah, Well,
I think Rum is probably, youknow, a good example of that,
and it's just because we've changed somuch our sound. You know,
it's almost weird even playing that songand our seconds it sounds, so it's
such an outlier, but it's alsocool for that reason. I mean,

(06:19):
I do, I do think itis a song though I think you could
easily make an argument had we releasedthat song now, it would have been
a much bigger hit than it wasthen. And you know, when you're
first starting out, that was likethe first song that really introduced us to
people. And quite often that's notusually the song that takes the artist at
number one, but it is thefirst one that gets them known and gets

(06:40):
them across the finish line with anothersong, and that was that song for
us. However, people still liketo hear it, and we still play
it because it is fun. Butit is a total outlier from the rest
of the stuff that we've done sinceand we're currently doing now. But that's
not to say I mean, ifI heard it again, I don't know.
I don't know. I don't knowif we would record it or not.
But there are some songs that I'mlike, man, if we have
if we could have released this now, it would be it would probably would

(07:02):
have been a huge hit for us, knowing how intense you guys can be.
And maybe that's not the right word, but how oh I can be
intense? No, maybe not,John, I definitely can be intense with
the writing process that that portion ofthe creation. Do you get offered songs
a lot? Are you kind oflike like we do it? We we
could offered songs every now and again. I tell you it's it's funny because

(07:26):
when people send us songs and itdoesn't happen that often because we've written all
of our songs, but it soundslike someone sometimes it sounds like someone tried
to rewrite one of our songs thatwe put out, and like we don't
really even do that ourselves. AndI can see why they would think,
like this could be a cool Brother'sOsborne song, But I'm like, it
kind of sounds likely in my fault, like we've kind of done that already.

(07:47):
But lately we've been sent a fewsongs We're like, Okay, this
is really cool. Maybe not onehundred percent for us, but I'm appreciating
that we're getting to hear songs thatare being written in a completely different way,
and we were the people they inthat process. So it is a
high honor when it comes to anEP versus an album. I feel like
we've talked to a lot of artistsso far in twenty twenty four about EP

(08:09):
versus like here's a full album?Is an EP like a break from like
the work of a full album,or like, what's the difference for you
guys on that part? Well,the Devin Sara would be, I mean,
to do a full length record,it just takes a lot of time
to get the material together. Italso takes a lot of time to record
it, get in edit it,do all the stuff you gotta do.
I mean, it's very time consuming. And then when you do that,

(08:33):
you're usually not going to put somethingout for another two or three years.
And by the way, before yougo into even by that time that's released,
a lot of times you've recorded thata year before then and wrote it
a year or two before that.So by the time you're hearing a song,
it could be three or four yearsold, and then we got to
wait another two or three years toput out another album, And so it
can be a really huge swing increativity there. And so for us to

(08:56):
be able to put more music outare more frequently, maybe not as much
music. Then we can kind ofstay on something whatever we're currently feeling at
that moment, whether it be lyricallyor musically, and kind of we can
keep adjusting and making however, wewant to pivot at any point in time
musically, and so that's kind ofthat's how it is for us. And
I think for this we preempted onthis record and we went and record our

(09:18):
last one, and we recorded sometracks with the anticipation that we would release
them in an EP later on,and so we want to our plane of
now is to keep keep running onthat. And you know, we've we've
always prided ourselves and being making fulllength records that you'd want to listen to
in front the back. But youknow, we've done that four times now
and I think we've proven that wecan do that to our hopefully you know,

(09:41):
to our fans and to us andand so now we just want to
switch it up a little bit,you know, kind of stay on our
toes a little and being a littlebit more active in the creative aspect of
it. Uh. The title isbreak Mine. That's the name of the
song coming to country radio. Howdoes that? How does that fit for
where you guys are as brothers,as a band, as creators on the

(10:07):
process, Like, how does thisfit? Maybe you're not building a puzzle,
but it feels like every artist isbuilding a puzzle with their work,
you know what I mean? Well, yeah, the kind of are I
mean? If it like, ifyou listen to someone's work over time,
chronologically, you'll hear how their writinghas shifted. You'll hear how the music
has shifted, how they're singing changes. But one of the cool things about
this is it it's a little bitthrowback to our first album, pawn Shop,

(10:31):
unintentionally, but that's still a bigpart of who we are. If
you kind of mash up like twentyone Summer and stay a little longer,
this would be the song that yougot And then those are two big songs
in our sets. So we stillperform to this day and they don't feel
old to us. They don't feela decade old or eight years old,
or however long it is. Itstill feels like very much a part of

(10:54):
our vocabulary. So it does fitin the bigger picture of things. But
sonically it has evolved it has grown. I mean we've He's improved as a
singer, I've improved as a musician. It's just it's a bit more a
grown up version of who we werea decade ago. When it comes to
this being like, I always feellike the first song off of a project,

(11:16):
whether it's the album EP is almostlike a handshake. Not that you
have to reintroduce yourselves, right,but it's almost like introducing the latest chapter
of you. Why did this songmake sense for that? Well? I
mean I again, I think,you know, going back to what would
be the kind of the chapter thisnext thing is. We kind of felt
like that we did that really heavilyon our last record, which was self

(11:39):
titled Brothers Osborne. Yeah, andwe felt like that was particularly important in
that moment, just because we hadboth shared a lot about ourselves. It
had been the years since we releasednew music, and as we springborne off
of this, I think it's aboutyou know, I think that I guess,
to use your analogy, it doesfeel at times like there is always
has to be this reintroduction with anew album, and I think the way

(12:00):
we might tie these together is thatit might just always kind of feel like
the story is just running on andcontinuing, and we don't need to have
to pick up from somewhere that wasa dead space, and we can just
kind of keep having these stepping stonesto carry us through on to wherever we're
going to lead next. Over thepast few years, the interactions that I've
been lucky enough to have with youguys, it feels like you have hit

(12:22):
a point in your career where you'velearned how to put yourself first. But
like, the hustle can exist,but it's going to exist in this shell,
and then outside of that, it'salmost like a mental health thing,
right, So at what point didyou start balancing that and when you do,
how do you tell it? Becauseyou have a different breaking point than
your brother and vice versa, rightas far as like I need a break,

(12:43):
so how do you How do youdo that? And how do you
guys communicate to each other like,Hey, I'm gonna need a few days.
Yeah, Honestly, I think thefirst thing that you have to do
is be able to communicate with yourself. You know, when you're young and
you're just pushing on and to pursuethe dream is hard. It requires all
of your energy and re cuires allof your time, and you miss birthdays,
and you miss big events with yourfamily, and you miss your own

(13:07):
birthdays. You just kind of justput everything through the side, and eventually
your body and your mind starts going, hey, uh, I need a
little help over here, and you'relike, I'll be fine, I'll get
to later. I'll get to itlater. I'll get to a later,
I'll get TOI later. And thenyou have a breaking point and you're like,
oh my god, what happened.You get through it and you look
back and go, wow, Imissed a lot of red flags coming from
within. So you you learn tobe more privy to your own needs and

(13:33):
your own red flags, and youdon't ignore those signs because they start out
small and they don't they gradually getbigger. And then after that you have
to respect that you're a human being. I mean, you only have so
much time in your life. Ihave kids now. You have to consciously
make space for those things because it'syour quality of life. And you know,
we're very open with like how wefeel, and you know, we're

(13:56):
lucky that we have a management teamthat for like, hey, its getting
a little crazy with dial it back, like absolutely, we'll do that.
But in this industry, you haveto advocate for yourself because if you don't
do it, no one else isgoing to do it for you. Yeah.
I think when you first start out, you're like, I mean,
we're go getters. Some we workedup in a you know, we grew
up very blue collar, so we'rejust like opportunity yes, opportunity yes,

(14:18):
Like I'll take all of them.And then yeah, you do get to
a point where you're like, atsome point in time, you do need
to say no. And because youmore so even just I mean, I
guess the mental health you want tocall it, but you just get to
this place of burnout where you justyou just start to hate it. Like
even though you're doing these amazing thingsand you're playing amazing venues and you achieve
your dream, you start resenting itfor a while because it starts taking all

(14:39):
of your time and you're like,well, I'm not really enjoying any of
this anymore. And so for usto have a space to have a healthy
relationship with it is I think it'ssomething that we've really been good at.
We don't always hit the mark,but I think currently going out when you
are in that head space and youcan make music that way. Go out
and play a show, and I'mnot out there feeling like God, I
do not want to be here.I'm feeling oh man, it's amazing.

(15:01):
It just makes everything better, likeit makes things better at home, makes
things better out on the road.And that's been It's taken us a long
time to learn that. We learnedit the hard way in some ways,
but that's been been a big thing. Just also, just stop and smell
the roses. You know, it'shard to do. There is a big
show coming up May fourth in Austin, Texas. And I don't know how

(15:22):
far ahead you look in your calendar, or maybe I'm usually not that far,
but this show is big enough thatI know it's coming. The iHeart
Country Festival it's back this year.You guys were a surprise last year.
Yeah, but you're announced this year. You're part of the big show this
year. El Dean, It's JellyRoll, it's Lady A, it's you
guys, it's old dominion. Knowingthat this becomes like a melting pot of

(15:45):
the artists doing it better than anybodyelse today. What does it mean to
see your name on a list likethat, and what do knights like that
mean to you guys? Well,it's important to us because we've had,
like, we're very appreciative of radio, and radio has been very good to
us. But we always kind oflike walked on the margins of it,
not you know, out it wasn'tour intention, but we've always kind of

(16:07):
done our thing and we've never reallychanged the way we sound or how we
write. So we're grateful for allof the help that we have had knowing
that we are a little bit different, but for us to keep doing our
thing, and then for us tosee our name amidst that kind of list
and that is a diverse group ofsound coming out of one genre. It
just kind of makes us feel betterabout the genre as a whole because it

(16:30):
is wider than it's ever been.I mean, you look, you've got
Laney, and you've got Jelly,and it's like you know, and then
you've got Lady A and all Dominionnow us, I mean, that is
a lot of different sounds and we'rejust lucky to be a part of this
beautiful quilt that we call country music. Yeah, and last time we played
there at that Fast of All wassuch a fun time, you know,
and and there's so many times forI mean not to be frank, but

(16:52):
there's so many times where radio showsare not that fun. Yeah, So
walk out there and I was like, damn, this is the this is
actually fun as hell. Like wehad. We had a great, a
great time. We loved it.Plus being an Austin just a great spot.
But you know, we've gone therebecause that's you know, the big
show. But we it makes methink all the way back to to like
when we were just because that eventwas happening, We're like, well,
let's go there and through an aftershow party where people can come out because

(17:15):
they're going to be in town andkind of like ride the coattails of that
event to be to be to playingat the event. It's cool and that's
like one of the coolest things inour whole career, Like rooms that we
were opening in that we're now theheadliner are in and all of that kind
of stuff. It's it's like,it's it reminds us how far we've come.
Every time a normal tour is stopis I'd imagine you're building the set

(17:36):
list, and we've talked set listsa while ago. When you guys are
in here. It's you know,it's you got to do this, You
got to do this throughout this show. The iHeart Country Festival is built.
We're like, here's your time,here's your time. Right, It's really
like bang out. You know yoursongs, you know tempo, you know,
mixing the big hits whatever. Howdo you build a set list for

(17:57):
something like that, whether it's likea twenty twenty five thirty minutes set versus
you know, you're playing for anhour and a half, two hours if
you feel froggy that night whenever.How's this difference between building the two Well,
I mean, the thing is therethat would be a little challenging,
you know, like right off thebat would be you're gonna want to come

(18:17):
out swinging, but then everyone's wantto be coming out swinging, and at
some point in time when everyone's swingingall night long, it just gets a
little like it just wears you out. So you're like, how do you
then be able to have a momentwhere But then again you don't want to,
like, you don't know anyone else'sset, so I don't want to
come out here and you know andplay like a chill set when the person
before me just played a whole setof ballads and you're next thing, Everyone's
like boring, you know, soI think you do when I have like

(18:38):
how do you come in hot havea moment where you can bring them down
and back up. I mean,I think we're pretty pretty good at that.
But we'll I don't know how longwe have to play, but I
know last time we played it,we had a good time, and we'll
usually come. We like to bethe band that gives the crowd what they
want. And I'm the type ofperson when I'm there and if I were
to see a band, I'm like, hey, I love your new music.
And as much as I want toplay new songs on and I we

(19:00):
want to put new songs, Ialso win the type of person I'm like,
hey, I'm sorry, but playthe play the hits like come on,
give them tim so let me letme back you into a corner.
Then may fourth Moody center lights golow, big Fancy Brothers, Osborne,
introduction by Bobby Bones or whoever's youknow doing your your innswer at that point,
what's the first song that you comeout with? Will and Nelson cover

(19:27):
last thing? I want to askyou guys, is uh Country music has
become so much more than just writeit, record it, put it out.
There's a lot of noise outside ofjust the music, whether it's I
mean, you guys have done theyou know, put your name on the
whistle Pig right like whistle Pig onthat special release. People are opening bars.

(19:48):
There's a new bar about every otherday with an artist or band's name
on it. Where do you guyssee yourselves outside of just the music?
Like, what what do you wantto do? Obviously you're nominated again.
You can't have an award show withouta Brothers Osborne nomination. Let's go.
But other than that, that wasmy way of saying same to you,
thank you. But when it whenit comes to that extra stuff, is

(20:11):
it important? Well no, notat all. I mean, in fact,
I think the more you get,the more you realize how much that
doesn't really do anything for your happiness. And I've actually been trying to refocus
on my life just as of late, of just of how do I be
of service to others and give backin a way that because it fulfills me
way more than any of this stuff, you know, and I trust me,

(20:33):
I want more, but I knowwhen I get more, I'm still
gonna want more. And you know, there's there. There is a quote
I heard once from two famous authorswhen being Joseph Heller who wrote Catch twenty
two and then what's the kind soldour house? And it's don't having all
his book spent Kurt Vonnegut, butthere are you know, a billionaire's house,

(20:57):
and and he's like, Wow,you have the biggest book the world
right now, and you're not evenclose to touching what this guy has.
And he goes, yeah, butI have something that he will never have
enough. Yeah, And that andthat is where, uh, that's where
I've been trying to live a littlebit these days. And it's I know,
I'm getting ready to wrap here.Uh. It's crazy because I just
had a similar conversation with somebody onthe radio side about something that I was

(21:21):
chasing, and I got it andit didn't do what I thought. It
never does. It never does whatyou think it's going to. And I
got it, and I'm like,and it didn't do what I thought it
would do. For so like thefact, and literally I'm talking this is
the conversation that happened like an hourand a half ago. Really yeah,
And in fact it's in fact,it's even it makes you feel even way
worse because you're like, wait,well I worked all of that and it

(21:44):
didn't give me anything. Now youfeel even worse than you did before you
got there, because you're like,I thought this was the answer. And
it's a very common thing. It'spartly with John went down the journey he
did with mental health. As youget there and you're like, wow,
not only do I still feel likecrap, but I have a lot more
to lose now. And now yougot all this anxiety and I know it's
on. It's such a ridiculous thingto complain about, but it's extraordinarily common,
and it's what a lot I thinkit drives a lot of people to

(22:06):
be crazier, or drugs or drinkingjust to have some other stimulations. You
realized that, like, it's allthe things that men have been there all
along, you know. But it'sokay, it's all right to ignore those
things because it's what we do.It's the type of people we are.
But at some point you will havea day of reckoning where you realize,
okay, I need to realign mypriorities and realize that all the things that
truly matter to my heart have beenwithin arms reach all these years. So

(22:30):
as we land the plane, thesegue was Award nominations. I'm a fan
of you guys as humans. First, I've been lucky enough to interact with
you all the time, thinks,and I'm just as big a fan of
the music that you guys created,shows you put on. So if I
have an opportunity, I'm typing thename and I'm checking the box for same

(22:51):
you get another nomination. What didthat mean to Brothers Osbourne ten years ago
versus what it means today? Yeah, I mean it's interesting to put that
in perspective because there's so many things, you know, because and here's the
other thing to maybe springboard off whatyou're talking about is that it has been
kind of like a slow rise forus through our entire careers, and there'd
be people who are like, man, you guys are killing it. I'm

(23:11):
like, we are, you know, like what you know? Are like
it's killing me. I know thatwas, you know, and so you
know, I do feel like ithas been that. But when I look
back, you know, that's whyit was cool. So I was talking
earlier about just like when you're like, you go to these rooms and you're
like, holy cow, we werein this room as the opener. Now
we're in this room as the headliner, and you look back over five ten
years and just think of where youcame from from our first nomination to the

(23:34):
first time we won, and justhow shocking all of those moments were.
And I just try to bottle thatup as much as I can and not
forget it. I will never havethat same excitement again because it's just to
be impossible to get there. ButI always try to just remember and have
the same gratefulness that I had tobe in the conversation. And I think
that's that's you know, certainly whereI'm at with it right now. I

(23:55):
mean, if you win back toback years, like do you go home
and go, well, twenty nineteenputs you wait, here's twenty twenty.
They all get a place. Hellyeah, they all get a place.
I have a studio. I havea place where they go in the house.
But I do have a studio thatI bought down the street from my
house, and I've been letting friendsand stuff you use it, And I
do have a couple of there's youknow, just letting you all know I've

(24:15):
done some cool stuff, you know, not all of them, just a
couple, you know, I stillwant to be kind of humble about it.
Well, I know you all arebusy, so the fact that you
had any time today to come hangout of me is a lot. Make
sure I'm making time for you