Brothers Osborne join Today’s Country Radio with Kelleigh Bannen to celebrate the release of their self-titled album. They discuss writing ‘We Ain’t Good At Breaking Up’ with Miranda Lambert, writing and recording the album without any personal limitations, and their new approach to connecting with fans on social media.
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John Osborne of Brothers Osborne Tells Apple Music About Writing ‘We Ain’t Good At Breaking Up’ with Miranda Lambert
You know how it is writing with other artists. Sometimes one artist, if you’re writing for them, you’re going to have to leave your artist thing at the door, and you’re writing for them. But some artists don’t do that well, no matter how hard they try. [Miranda] was amazing. She showed up as Miranda Lambert, the co-writer, period. And she was an amazing co-writer… Co-writing is an art, and you have to be willing to compromise and listen and read the room, and she was amazing at that.
TJ Osborne of Brothers Osborne Tells Apple Music About Writing ‘We Ain’t Good At Breaking Up’ with Miranda Lambert
One o’clock rolled around, we got a little stuck, and we’re like, “Okay.” And then she’s like, “All right, we need some rosé.” And then she like… just started drinking rosé and it worked. We just started popping off some more lyrics. It was a really fun process. So when we did the demo of that, she just sang a bunch of oohs and backgrounds and made it this dreamy, almost Fleetwood Mac feeling thing. So we just thought, “Man, we have to have that.” I was like, “Miranda, do you mind coming and doing that again on the song, even though you may not have a verse or a chorus?” And she came out and killed it.
Brothers OsborneTell Apple Music About Producing ‘Younger Me’
JOHN: It was basically a demo and everyone loved it and I played all the instruments on it. And then TJ sang a vocal just sitting down with an SM7 and they’re like, “We love this, we want to put it out.” And I was like, “Okay, the MIDI drums sound like crap.”
TJ: Then everyone’s like, “Well, who are we going to cut it with?” And I’m like, “You just said you loved it. Why do we have to redo this? I don’t understand why that’s a thing.”
JOHN: Yeah. So I sent it to our drummer and then he put real drums on it and then that was it. But honestly, it’s hard to produce your own stuff because I don’t know how people act and direct at the same time.
John Osborne of Brothers Osborne Tells Apple Music About Switching Producers for Self-Titled Album
The thing is you have to find the great collaborator and Jay [Joyce], he’s an amazing collaborator. He is a genius. He is a wizard. There’s no one like him. But at the same time, we don’t want ourselves to get comfortable ever. We try to change it up on our albums. We try to do different things and what more different thing can we do than to change the captain of the ship? And after the first day, it was great. [Mike Elizondo] let us do our thing. He let us be us, and he trusted our instinct, which is great. We trusted his instinct.
TJ Osborne Tells Apple Music About Releasing Music for the First Time Since He Came Out
While, with this record, we didn’t particularly talk specifically about those topics, it really was interesting to create without any of those barriers there that were even at times of whether we knew that they were there or not. They were the whole time. And I think for me, part of the reason why I particularly really loved, not only how the music turned out, but just the process was really enjoyable. The writing songs was a lot more enjoyable. The recording was, and there was just, instead of having to steer around or be fearful of how something was going to be portrayed, I think now it was like we’ve been pretty open about who we are.
TJ Osborne of Brothers Osborne Tells Apple Music About Having Fun with Social Media
What I have found is that even just my daily routine or posting things on social media — where before I was very guarded by that, I was super fearful of letting people in — and not having that anymore, I have found myself actually having fun with that. And oddly, I feel like [I’m] connecting more with our fans in a way that it just is very natural at times where I want to do it instead of overthinking. I mean literally a litany of things. So that part has been really cool. And I think having that veil kind of down now, I feel really, more than ever, closer with our fans than we ever have been.
