Brothers Osborne: 'There isn't a big distinction between country and rock music'
Brothers Osborne believe and there isn’t a big distinction between rock and country music nowadays.
Shortly before their triumphant main stage performance at Planet Rockstock, siblings T.J. and John Osborne explained to Darren Redick why they don’t change their live shows to cater to specific audiences.
“We just do what we do,” says frontman T.J. “We definitely have very rock leaning tendencies; the music can be that way.
“The biggest thing is just getting up there and playing some good music and hopefully they perceive it that way. We’ve played a lot of shows here and it’s really cool to see a good mix of rock fans and some country fans. Honestly, to me, you think about like Johnny Cash or Hank Williams and Waylon Jennings I mean those dudes are to me, definitely personify rock and roll.”
Guitarist John adds: John: “If you look at country, say mid-nineties and back, maybe it would be different. Maybe there was a clear distinction between the two. But somewhere along the way country music kind of inherited a rock guitar thing and when that happened it seemed like the two started becoming more and more related.
“If you listen to someone like Jason Aldean, yeah, he’s a dude in a cowboy hat and he’s singing about growing up in Georgia, but his band is a full on rock band, I mean they’re playing rock riffs and everything. If you took the vocals out of it it’s rock and roll. So I think where they was once a big distinction there isn’t.
“We grew up listening to rock and roll and country. We didn’t go ‘I only listen to one and this is what I’m going to do. I think naturally your influences just kind of shape who you are – you don’t think, ‘well I want to play this note but I can’t because that’s considered country’. We don’t care! We’re just doing what we think sounds like cool music.
“It’s very guitar heavy; T.J.’s a singer and I’m a guitar player and I grew up listening to rock music as well as country and I don’t think that I’m gonna change who I am to fit a mould, it’s just what I sound like as a guitar player and he sounds like as a singer."
T.J. continues: “Eagles weren’t super heavy but they were very country early on. It’s really weird because in the States for a long time we weren’t country enough, we were a little too rock. And you start to see now the lines of genres are starting to become a lot more blurred and people just want to hear good music.”
Elsewhere in their chat, the brothers discuss how they final burst onto the scene after years of trying, they share unique advice to aspiring musicians and talk about buying their mum a house.
Brothers Osborne finish their rapturously received UK tour at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town tonight (Sunday 2nd December).