The Brothers Osborne will be on the Eccles Stage on Sunday evening with Park City Performing Arts Institute and The St. Regis Big Stars Bright Nights summer concert series.
KPCW's Carolyn Murray talked with John Osborne about growing up in a small town on the Chesapeake Bay, singing with his brother and all the musicians and musical genres that inspire the brother duo.
John Osborne’s parents were always singing and writing songs, he says, while growing up in Deale, Maryland. He and band member, brother, TJ got their inspiration from so many talents . He says they didn’t know what musical genres were when they were kids. There was just good music and bad music.
“You know, we listened to everything. You know, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers to George Jones, to Merle Haggard. We played classical music as kids. Played a lot of blue grass as kids. We played a lot of 90’s pop music, 90’s country music. If it resonated with us, we listened to it.”
Osborne started with the violin, but he says he was such a big kid, his teacher encouraged him to switch to the upright bass. Then, he picked up the guitar in junior high school and his priorities changed.
“But, once I learned how to play a guitar chord, it seems like that is where my calling was. I’d always put down the bass and pickup the guitar. I was just so attracted to that instrument. But, I’m mostly self-taught. My Dad and my Mom taught me how to play a few chords and my Dad taught me how to play the pentatonic blues scale. And then after that, I was just hooked."
Brothers Osborne have written hundreds of songs and John says with only 10 or 12 cuts to an album, their publicist will try to sell songs that don’t make it on an album. He says the song Here Tonight was performed by Tim McGraw and he and brother TJ loved it and they’re considering cutting it again themselves.
“In all honesty, sometimes artists cut your song and you get them back and they don’t really do them justice. Because a lot of times, they’re not really married to the song like you are. So, you never really know what you’re going to get. Tim sang it perfectly. I feel like it encapsulated perfectly what the purpose of the song was.”
Osborne feels like the show is solid with a lot of good transitions. He says they play like a band, loose in a good way and not a pop rock show.
“There a couple moments in the set where we just kind of change it up a little bit every night so the band stays fresh and the audience gets a little something in particular. We also have a lot of guitar solos as well so if you don’t like guitar solos, you’re probably going to hate our show.”
The Park City Performing Arts Institute brings the Brothers Osborne to perform at the George S. & Dolores Dore Eccles Center Theater Sunday, July 7th at 7:30.
