INTERVIEW: Brothers Osborne on Their Journey So Far

When we won our first AMA award, we were both very emotional for many reasons…it felt like it was such a team effort. There was so many people who had supported us from going all the way back to Deale, Maryland where we’re from and our family band, Deuce & A Quarter. And it kind of felt we had all kind of been on this ride together and all of the fans and family members along the way were the people who kind of helped us make it to that point. It felt kind of like we had all done this together. It definitely feels, even with someone outside of the family, even just some fans that were there for the beginning, they feel like family.

John Osborne: I know when we started writing, I’ll speak for myself on this one and I’m sure it’s not too dissimilar for TJ, but I just kind of didn’t care. It was back when you didn’t have anything, it’s not like we, at the time we didn’t have a bus, we didn’t even have a van, I had two guitars, I had nothing. I was way more relaxed than I am now, and like, ah, who cares? We’ll just write whatever. And then you start having a bit of success and then the stakes get higher. And then you go from not even having a van to buses and trucks and crews and stuff like that and salaries that you have to pay for. And not that that pressure factors in, but there is an element of okay, we’ve seen our fan base grow and we’ve got to, at the very minimum, keep it the same, but we would like to keep growing it. I think that does kind of dictate where you go a little bit, but it’s not so much what does radio want right now?

TJ Osborne: Yeah, I think it’s exactly right. Yeah. I mean, obviously we want to write songs for us. I mean, originally it’s like, I want to write songs to say what I want to say, and kind of some songs for me and surprisingly, those can be the songs that actually end up being the ones that resonate the most with people. Surprisingly, but at the same time, I really want to play. I love to entertain, I love to play to lots of people and not in the sense that I’m rich and famous, just it’s fun as hell. And so we clearly want songs that can do that. And sometimes it happens to be, probably radio’s philosophy too, or whatever that is. And those things, they intersect sometimes with us and radio and sometimes we’re completely on opposite sides. There are some times where I’m like, wow, there are fans that want to hear this and they’re not really getting it anywhere, and clearly that’s out there, and, for us, we’re all about mainly servicing that. And if that means that it’s a song that works on radio, then so be it, but it’s something we’re not beholden to, for sure.

Fancy Hagood: Can we jump from music to more of a personal note? TJ, you’ve had a big year this last year with some decisions, I guess we could call it.

TJ Osborne: I think, yeah. I mean, I think you can probably quickly narrow it down to what you’re talking about. But no, it’s been almost right at a year, pretty close. Yeah, where I decided to come out. That was a huge moment in my life and certainly life changing in pretty much exclusively positive ways.

Fancy Hagood: Yeah. And I want you to talk about that. Before coming out, I came out when I was 19 and I remember the fear that I had then with not being on a giant platform and can you talk about that, the fear, did you have any fears or any concerns about coming out?

TJ Osborne: I think, yeah, of course. But I think I’d been kind of living with these little fears all day every day for years. I think I was also just so excited to be free of that burden. And I had some fear, I guess, because mainly for me, I mean, one of the weird things is when John was talking about when you get success, there’s so many people that rely on what you do. And so anything that involves John or I, or even just involves me also involves John. What involves us involves our crew or managers, labels, there’s a lot of people that are involved. I was more concerned about that, how that would play out more than, but I knew I was ready. I knew I was ready myself and I realized there was just never ever going to be this perfect moment where I jumped through this hoop and everything, I land on my feet and it’s wonderful. And I kind of realized getting on the other side of it, and I’m curious if it was the same for you, is that once I did that, I realized that, wow, I felt such an incredible relief, instantaneously. It wasn’t like…

Fancy Hagood: Oh, I felt I lost a thousand pounds. Gained it all right back, right after the fact! You talked about there never being a good time, and I remember feeling that way. I told my parents when they were coming to Nashville, I lived here for three years already, and my parents were coming to visit me. And it’s like, I lived in my first apartment by myself and they literally opened the door to walk in my apartment and I just pretty much like screamed. But the thing is is for anyone listening that is going through that, if there’s never a good time, that means it’s always the right time to do it. Because you can’t do it soon enough for your own self.

TJ Osborne: Yeah, exactly. I mean, and then there’s a thing, too, it’s just an awkward thing to say.

Fancy Hagood: Have to do anyway, yeah.

TJ Osborne: I mean, it’s just weird. We’re two people who love attention, but that-

Fancy Hagood: Me?

TJ Osborne: That type of attention’s not… I don’t like shock value attention or whatever, I don’t like that.

Fancy Hagood: I only like attention if I’m in control of it, I just want to say that.

TJ Osborne: And I also will say, because I had a lot of people reach out to me about who knew someone who was, or they suspected or their child was and they kind of knew, but it hadn’t been talked about and just give them space, don’t pressure them, let them do it on their own time. I mean, it’s pretty much guaranteed that they’ll feel outed if you kind of push them into coming out to you and that’s just all I’ll say.

Fancy Hagood: That makes me want to talk to you, John, because y’all are a duo. Was there any fear on your side about the decision for him to come out?

John Osborne: My only fear wasn’t for me at all. It was never like, oh my God, my career, whatever, I don’t care. I mean, my brother’s happiness is much more important than any dollar amount.

TJ Osborne: John’s like, I think I can make more money without him at this point.

John Osborne: Yeah. I kind of wanted to be a solo act anyway, I was like, this could work out great. We both win. No, honestly, but my fear was for him, him being my little brother. I mean, we’re still both 6’4, but he’s my little brother and I’m going to have to beat some people up and I’m going to have to go on Twitter and I’m going to have to just verbally just get into fist cuffs with people and which is-

TJ Osborne: Which is a very wonderful to experience.

John Osborne: It is cathartic. It gets nowhere, but it is cathartic. There was that, I was worried about not only what people will say, but maybe just kind of the, I don’t know, just the global conversation being a bit intense and being some sort of controversial debated topic. And then when it happened, it was nothing. There’s nothing besides love. One weird tweet, I’m like, well, it’s just one of a few hundred that was way better. I’m like, I don’t even need to acknowledge that, this is incredible. I think it goes to show that no one should assume anything. I was being presumptuous of our culture, of our people in a way, because growing up in the nineties, I mean, gay marriage was just legalized basically a few days ago in my opinion. And so it’s still-

Fancy Hagood: 2015, yeah.

John Osborne: I mean, that was, yeah, it feels like yesterday. And so there is still a bit of fear and the protectiveness over him. When he did come out, I was ready to go to battle and I realized, wow, actually, this is amazing. I mean, this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I have goosebumps even talking about it.

Fancy Hagood: Me too. I have chilies.

TJ Osborne: There’ll probably a great episode in the future to do where the roles get flipped on you and you get interviewed, but, I think just seeing, from an outside perspective, as someone who was pretty closeted and seeing just kind of what was happening around town and seeing you just be who you are and being out there and see how people would respond to you and just people just kind of letting or freak flags fly, whatever the hell that was… It just felt like a license to be whoever they truly were because you were being who you are. And it was very inspiring to see at that point and very influential, certainly had an impact on me. And to see that I think was, and you still are that, I mean, you’re just unabashedly yourself at all times. It’s wonderful.

TJ Osborne: Certainly just because of it being so timely and it was something that kind of happened in reaction to that we didn’t expect was “Younger Me.” I mean, that was… I think that song, that’s why we’re re-releasing our record and doing a deluxe version so we can put that song on there. When I did come out, I didn’t want it to be supporting a record, I didn’t want it to be supporting a tour. I wanted it to be very independent on its own, but because of that, when we kind of wrote a song in reaction to that, the album had already been released. I did not expect that song to happen, it was totally a thing that was kind of in response to me coming out, but also I think there’s such a common thread that I realized of just how difficult life is on everyone for whatever reason. And it just really presented itself, I think, in my mind, a moment for people to be able to relate to my experience and maybe in a different way of whatever hardship they had and to try to connect the dots there. And I think with that song with John was really kind of the same for him and his own in his own story.

John Osborne: Yeah. That is exactly the same, yeah.

Fancy Hagood: And it’s really special because you produced “Younger Me,” right, John?

John Osborne: Yeah. Well mostly by accident. We’re actually sitting in the studio that that room was written and created in, but we just made the demo. It was just a demo I did here in the room and everyone loved it. And our management was like, let’s put this out now. It was during the quarantine, we didn’t have time to go in a studio, we couldn’t even get into a studio. We thought, all right, well, we’ll just do it here. And I had our drummer Adam Box put some drums on it at his studio and we threw it together super fast and I love the way that it turned out. I really did.

Fancy Hagood: It’s beautiful.

We’re getting ready for another album and then trying to go out there and keep growing this thing and just kind of… I mean, that’s what’s kind of next, but at this point, I think just still trying to figure out where we fit in. We’ve always been a little bit of an outcast in some regards and always been kind of underdogs. And even though we have won awards and have had a lot of success or more success than ever thought that we would, I still feel all the time that we’re just kind of these underdogs that always need to prove ourselves. And so I’m just going to keep doing that.

TJ Osborne: Bruce Springsteen or something like that.

Fancy Hagood: Oh, that’d be good.

John Osborne:  Yeah. Bruce Springsteen would be really incredible. I want to go out there, I keep bringing his name up lately, but I’ve been a Bruno Mars fan for a very long time. All the whole world’s like, wow, this guy’s amazing. I’ve been into that dude for a very long time. I would like to collaborate with him simply so I could just watch his genius in front of me and try to maybe get a drop of what he’s got oozing off of him. I think Bruno Mars is one of the best that’s ever lived.

Fancy Hagood: That would be amazing.

TJ Osborne: I would love to also see you bust out some Bruno Mars dance moves on stage while you’re playing guitar.

John Osborne: I will not be doing that. I will not.