Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The Boys Are Back In Town
AMP welcomes familiar faces, fresh music
The last time brothers John and TJ Osborne performed on the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion stage, it was the summer of 2016, and the duo were one of the support acts for country superstar Miranda Lambert. As Brothers Osborne prepare for their Rogers return on Sept. 17 — headlining their own “We’re Not For Everyone Tour” — frontman TJ marvels at the changes just a few years can bring.
“I mean, s***, it’s been almost two years since anyone’s really been out to tour,” Osborne points out. The duo’s third studio album, “Skeletons,” was released in October 2020, so that time away from the road allowed for space to really focus on the message and the aesthetic of the eventual tour, he shares.
“We’re at a really fun place where we can play a lot of our own music, and it’s either playing a hit or a song that’s very familiar to the crowd,” he says, “so I think the shows have gotten a lot better as far as the way the set list goes. We really stepped it up in so many ways, just across the board. The tour is a larger production and, I’m not just saying this, but we really did take a big step up from where we were last time touring to now.”
The tour gets its name from the fourth track on the brothers’ most recent release and has become something of a mission statement as they take on this new chapter.
“If ‘Pawn Shop’ was our introduction, and ‘Port Saint Joe’ was like the first conversation we had with someone over a beer, then ‘Skeletons’ is the moment where you start getting down to the real stuff and showing who you really are,” John says in the pair’s bio. “If you really want to get to know us, this is the record to do it.”
On “Skeletons,” Brothers Osborne chose to show some sides that some people knew existed but had never been featured in that way before, Osborne reveals. John, as the band’s versatile guitar hero, had never brought his vocals up from backing to lead before “I’m Not For Everyone.” And on “Muskrat Greene,” John gets another moment to shine.
“Even though we’re comprised of me being the singer and my brother being a guitar player … it’s not just someone holding a guitar. I mean, he’s a true guitar player — a guitar player’s guitar player,” Osborne says proudly of his brother. “So we always thought, ‘How the hell do we not have an instrumental?’ So we thought, let’s do that now; let’s put it out there like a really cool moment. And to those people [who] just want to hear this amazing guitar player wail, they’re just big music fans, it was kind of really for them.”
For the moment, Osborne says, the pair feel they are giving everyone what they want with this tour and this set list. There’s true rock-out moments, times when it breaks down to acousticdriven, instrumental moments, heartfelt moments, party moments.
“There’s so much going on in this set right now that, honestly, I’m just emotionally and physically, mentally, exhausted when I get off the stage — in a good way,” Osborne confesses.
“I don’t want to have to be just a onedynamic band or have one song that
sounds like the same song over and over and over again,” he says. Besides, refusing to restrict themselves to any actual or perceived boundaries has given Brothers Osborne the freedom to pursue music that unites across philosophical or political differences — where everyone can come together for a good time.
“I do feel like we have gotten there as a band, which is something we’ve always wanted to do, creating a place where you can show up and just be whatever the hell you are, and you’ll be accepted.”
Acceptance may not be a word that often comes to mind when considering a genre that, particularly over recent years, has faced increasingly substantial indictments over gender and racial biases and stereotypes. In February, though, Osborne came out, making him the first openly gay artist signed to a major country music label. In the wake of sharing his news, Osborne has experienced an outpouring of love and support from both the country music community and its fans. With John’s candidness about his own mental health struggles, the Osborne brothers have found themselves at the center of some important conversations that those in the entertainment industry have traditionally shied away from.
“It really became apparent to us in both of our struggles, with me being closeted and my brother kind of dealing with these mental health issues in a private way, we realized that’s part of the problem, is no one’s talking about these things publicly,” Osborne says. “I think one of the biggest things that you need to realize in those moments, those dire moments, is that you’re just simply not alone … that other people are going through it, too. Sometimes it makes you feel crazy, that maybe there’s something wrong with me and not realizing that, while this is difficult and challenging, you’re not alone … And it’s just nice to have someone to relate to.
“I think to see, before your very eyes, two people who already had a public life and to see where our lives are now, having shared that, I hope is extremely encouraging,” he adds. “At the end of day, the money, the fame, the awards and all that, they pale in comparison to being able to make a change in any one person’s life.”