Brothers Osborne: Everybody’s Everything
photo: Natalie Osborne
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It’s the last day of November 2023, two months after the release of their new self-titled album, and the Osborne brothers—guitarist John and singer/guitarist TJ—have returned to their respective Nashville homes after a busy summer and fall on the road. In separate conversations, each musician confesses to being a bit tired; John owes part of his lethargy to his infant twins, who his wife, singer Lucie Silvas, gave birth to eight months earlier. As for TJ, his condition is a bit more puzzling.
“I had one of those nights last night where I actually behaved, went to bed early and woke up feeling worse than after a night when I was partying,” he says. “Isn’t that weird when that happens?”
One could forgive the brothers for being unaccustomed to rest and relaxation. Their past three years have been loaded with near-constant activity, including multiple national and international tours in support of their third album, 2020’s Skeletons, not to mention the reverberations from respective public disclosures about their private lives. Within months of that album’s release, amid the duo’s increasing success, TJ came out as gay. John followed that revelation a year later, freely discussing his mental health and the benefits of psilocybin therapy.
In the wake of these admissions, the musicians could have approached a fourth album in any number of ways—including simply staying the course. Yet, as any fan of the duo knows, the Brothers Osborne’s trajectory, at least sonically, has always been a bit of a mystery. It seems anything is possible.
Following three studio records and over a decade as one of country music’s most intriguing and eclectic duos, the Brothers Osborne had long established themselves as artists that defied any easy description. Their home-brewed concoction of outlaw country, classic rock, blues and Americana was a refreshing alternative to a parallel “bro-country” contingent that had forsaken the genre’s nuance and subtlety and replaced it with stereotype and swagger. Instead of loud and proud exercises of regional tropes, the Brothers Osborne delivered a record that stands as their most wide-ranging and personal to date.
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John and TJ arrived in Nashville separately in the early 2000s. Raised in Deale, Md., elder-brother John relocated to Music City first in order to attend Belmont University, and TJ followed after his high-school graduation. Individually, they kicked around in bands—hustling as sidemen on the club circuit—and developed their songwriting chops. Eventually, they teamed up, and, by 2011, had secured a publishing contract with Warner Chappell. A year later, on the verge of signing their major label record deal with EMI Nashville, TJ came out to John.
“I said, ‘Look, we’re about to embark on this thing together. We’re going to be contractually tied together through this. I just want you to know that I’m gay. And when the time is right, I do intend on being open about it,’” TJ says. “He was very sweet and got very emotional. He said he wouldn’t want me to be private, and he would support me at any point in time.”
The time was right in February of 2021, a few months after the release of Skeletons, and TJ became the first openly gay artist signed to a major country music label. The album’s cover art presents the two brothers, drawn in silhouette, walking through an oversized keyhole, from darkness into dawn. “I didn’t notice it at first, but going back and looking at it, it looks like we’re walking into a new place,” John says.
On their first three studio sets, the brothers had been incredibly happy and successful working with producer Jay Joyce. Yet, for their fourth LP, they felt the need to shake things up and bring in producer Mike Elizondo.
“Jay is a brilliant mind. He’s one of one. There’s no one like him. We’ve learned so much from him over the years,” John says. “One of the things we’ve always done is to try to do things we’ve never done before. If we’re getting complacent, that’s not fertile soil for creativity for my brother and me.”
At first glance, Elizondo was an unconventional choice. The producer’s previous credits spanned from 50 Cent to Eminem, Eric Clapton, Gary Clark Jr. and Lin-Manuel Miranda. His work with the latter artist helped earn him a Grammy nomination for Producer of the Year in 2022.
Yet, Elizondo’s familiarity with Brothers Osborne actually traces back to when the duo first formed. “I’ve followed them from day one,” Elizondo says. “I was blown away by their musicianship and their craftsmanship, and I loved the records they made with Jay Joyce. I was well aware of them.”
The producer also arrived with a request. “The first thing he asked was, ‘Are you cool if I play bass?’ That’s hilarious because he’s one of the most sought-after bass players on the planet. He was very kind to ask,” John says.
The brothers, of course, accepted.
Elizondo is a songwriter as well, credited on a slew of hits. He’d remembered an amicable session he had years before with the brothers and decided to start the fourth album in the writing room. “I quickly felt a connection with them and what they were looking to make happen on this next record,” Elizondo says.
That connection may have come quickly, yet the process for the brothers, Elizondo and their numerous co-writers required a little more patience—and TJ and John actually spent more time crafting these songs than they had for any previous record. “The stakes were higher now. And we’re making a pivot with a producer,” TJ says. “We said, ‘We really have to get this right.’”
According to Elizondo, working on “Nobody’s Nobody” set the course for the album. While collaborating with songwriter Kendell Marvel, John, TJ and Elizondo developed a narrative that is both a snapshot moment in the duo’s story and a broader affirmation of the dignity and value they believe every person deserves.
The corresponding video offers a message of positivity and inclusion though the presence of various romantically paired duos, including gay couples. For Brothers Osborne, it’s also a measuring stick.
In 2015, the Osbornes released their single, “Stay a Little Longer,” and watched it go Gold, reaching No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. Featuring real-life same-sex partners, the song’s video attracted some controversy within the country music community. Eight years later, TJ sees progress.
“The video for ‘Stay a Little Longer’ created a lot of divisiveness. A lot of people were upset. Now, we’re doing the same thing with the ‘Nobody’s Nobody’ video, maybe even to a larger scale, and people aren’t saying that,” TJ says. “I do feel country music has grown and moved a little bit toward more inclusivity.”
In early November, “Nobody’s Nobody” received a Grammy nomination for Best Country Duo/Group Performance, and the album scored a nomination for Country Album of the Year.
By their own admission, the Brothers Osborne are a somewhat enigmatic, if candid, pair. Famously, in 2022—shortly before the siblings collected the Duo of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music—radio stations removed their Skeletons single, “I’m Not for Everyone,” from their playlists. The song’s video starred a gay actor and activist, the late Leslie Jordan.
TJ noted the apparent slight as he made a brief acceptance speech at the ACM awards show in Las Vegas, saying, “About a week ago, they pulled our single from country radio, so I needed a little bit of wind put in our sails.” The singer thanked the Academy, said, “I love you” to his boyfriend Abi and, as John raised a trophy to the tens of thousands packed into Allegiant Stadium, offered, “Here’s to a great night in Vegas.”
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Ten years into their career together, the Brothers Osborne are turning out albums and singles routinely charting in the Top 10, collecting awards from the ACM, the Country Music Association and the Grammys, and selling out tour dates across the country. They are successful artists, by anyone’s definition, able to share aspects of their lives with lessening concern about the consequences. And they are ready for their close-up.
“In the beginning, we did this because we loved this, and it was fun,” TJ says. “We let that be our North Star in making this [next] record.”
Brothers Osborne looked at the album’s sessions as a reintroduction, envisioning it as a chance to hone in on new sonic territory. Likewise, Elizondo saw a pair ready to experiment.
“They had plenty of material, but they wanted to just see what would happen,” Elizondo says. “My goal was to try and find something that makes these guys feel a little uncomfortable—to find on some of the songs where the line in the sand is, where it might be going too far. When we get to some of these moments, to me, that’s where we’re in some exciting, unchartered territory. Fortunately, they were willing to go there. We pushed each other to go there.”
For an act that had always remained somewhat guarded, the two were more confident with themselves than ever. “My brother and I had disclosed very personal things about ourselves. We felt celebrated and supported—not judged—which then gives you the confidence to double down on yourself as a person. That will invariably find its way into your art, as it should,” John says.
TJ admits to having past feelings of imposter syndrome. At any moment in time, all the success and opportunity he had achieved was going to go away. “Now, when I step into an interview or when I speak publicly accepting an award, or performing live, I feel a sense of ease,” he says. “I feel very comfortable stepping into the light of myself.”
Elizondo brought in drummer Abe Laboriel Jr., who has served as Paul McCartney’s timekeeper for the past two decades. From the first note, pushed by a “dream” rhythm section of Elizondo and Laboriel Jr., the dynamic was raw and grooving, at times nodding to Parliament/Funkadelic or a blend of Al Green and The Rolling Stones. It was all pretty far afield from most contemporary country records, but the brothers were leaning in.
Some tracks flirt with pure funk beats while others settle gently around a bed of strings. And at times, as on “Goodbye’s Kickin’ In”—a cut they debuted on Jimmy Kimmel Live!—they find a comfortable middle ground between both of those motifs. Even Miranda Lambert’s co-write and sinewy guest vocal spot, on “We Ain’t Good at Breaking Up,” is more akin to Fleetwood Mac than Music Row.
Instead of zeroing in on a specific Brothers Osborne sound, the album’s 11 songs further expanded it. And, by self-titling the collection—with TJ and John’s faces appearing prominently on the cover—the duo sent the clearest of signals. “This is one-hundred percent who we are at this moment,” John says.
Brothers Osborne will spend much of 2024 on the road, crisscrossing the United States. Their Might As Well Be Us tour kicks off in late March and will mix theater and amphitheater dates. Fittingly, the tour’s theme echoes the track “Might as Well Be Me” and its lyrics, which reaffirm the brothers’ intent: “It ain’t a rule without breaking it/ No, It ain’t love without making it/ Gets better with time/ And there’s no time better than now/ So look out/ Mean what they say/ Say what they mean/ Yeah, the way I see/ Might as well be me.”
“A lot of our other contemporaries are like, ‘Here I am. I’m going to kick your ass. And here’s my flag in the sand.’ John and I were like, ‘Why can’t we just say that about our own feelings?’ It’s like, ‘We’re all here. Everyone chill out.’ If you want to come here and like country music, that doesn’t mean you have to be a certain person from a certain political viewpoint. You can be small town or big town,” TJ says. “At the end of the day, we were taught to speak up for the little guy and be the voice for people that may not have one.”
