Brothers’ sound, background stand out from country crowd

The Osborne brothers are like two sides of the same penny. John Thomas Osborne, 36, even has a copper-colored beard to match.

Thomas John Osborne, 34 — who goes by TJ — is fairly sure that the name switch was an afterthought because his older brother is the fourth John Thomas in the Osborne family.

“I think they had another boy and were like, ‘OK, we’ll just flip it around,’” he said.

As in life, so are they siblings in work. Together, they make up the country duo Brothers Osborne.

TJ takes on vocal duties, and John shreds on the guitar.

On Wednesday, they’ll play at Express Live, but the effortless musical kinship between them took decades of practice.

The brothers grew up amid the 5,000 people of Deale, Maryland, a town on Chesapeake Bay in the southern part of the state that straddles the line between North and South, conservative and liberal.

Their father was a plumber — the brothers’ backup career plan, should music not work out — and the Osborne family was one of the few left-leaning political supporters in the area.

The brothers grew up hunting, fishing and voting for Democrats, making them experts in navigating muddied waters.

Since moving to Nashville, Tennessee, they’ve encountered some Southerners confused about their Northern roots, but for the most part, audiences don’t mind.

“If they want to come out and hear some good music,” TJ Osborne said, “they don’t ... (care) where you’re from.”

That couldn’t-care-less attitude extends to every aspect of the duo’s attitude.

While many of their peers have dabbled with synthesizers and vocoders, the Osbornes remain dedicated to guitar solos and pedal steel.

John’s frequent electricguitar parts — which are more rock than country — started young. He played nonstop as a teenager, according to TJ, and that dedication, more than even raw talent, gave him his skill.

“I guess he was blessed in that he had big hands to play with, but it’s not like he was just knocked on the head,” TJ said. “He played and played. He got his 10,000 hours in a long time ago.”

On “Port Saint Joe,” the duo’s 2018 album recorded in a tiny town of the same name on the coast of the Florida Panhandle, John’s guitar riffs open fiery rocker “Shoot Me Straight” and simmer at the end of love song “Pushing Up Daisies.”

Fellow electronicaverse artists such as Chris Stapleton and Margo Price found audiences eager for a return to country with more strings and less bling.

“You come to find out there’s a lot of people hungry for real music and real musicians,” TJ said. “You can tell some of the people are used to watching bands where they’re just hitting tracks, and you watch their minds change a little bit as they watch us play.”

That straight-shooting style has earned the Osbornes Vocal Duo of the Year titles at the past three Country Music Association awards, beating big guns such as Florida Georgia Line and Sugarland in 2018 — both of whom have played arena shows in Columbus.

Starting out as the blue minority in their solidly red town prepared the brothers for an entire career spent as the underdogs. A few weeks ago, a crowd member called them the most underrated band in Nashville despite their public notoriety.

“I think we oddly have a sense of comfort in that,” TJ said. “Our songs don’t fly up the charts. We don’t fly around on private jets. We’re still out here working it. We’re out here playing shows and getting fans the old-fashioned way. If radio’s not going to play our music, we’ll give it to you.”