Few artists are arguably as important to Nashville’s evolution as Brothers Osborne. Since dropping their debut album Pawn Shop in 2016, the sibling duo of singer TJ Osborne and lead guitarist John Osborne have consistently challenged country norms, taking the genre into a more musically — and culturally — progressive future. On songs like “Dead Man’s Curve,” they blended rock and country without it coming across as pandering, and in videos like “Ain’t My Fault” they made sly commentaries on hot-button issues.
A decade since Pawn Shop, the Grammy-winning duo push the envelope yet again on Watertown, their new album dropping Oct. 23. It’s a salute to their hometown of Deale, Maryland, and features collabs with artists both natural — Stephen Wilson Jr. — and perhaps eyebrow-raising — Cody Johnson. Brothers Osborne are also previewing the LP not with full song releases, but with short versions tailor-made for social media. They’ve sarcastically dubbed them “Sellout Edits.”
“Our whole thing from the very beginning was, ‘We will never sell out. We’ll always do what we want. Fuck the system,’” John says during the band’s appearance on Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast. “It’s like, ‘Let’s just call it that because that’s what it feels like.’”
Watch their full interview here. An abbreviated, edited version of our conversation follows.
It’s been 10 years since you released Pawn Shop. So much has happened in that time. What’s changed for you?
TJ: As far as who we are, who I am, who we are as brothers and Brothers Osborne, I feel at ease about it. When you first start, you don’t have anything, so you have nothing to lose, and you don’t give a shit in a way. And then we had the success, and suddenly you think that would help you, but it gives you a lot to lose. You try to put yourself in a headspace that it isn’t stressful, but it is. At least for me, it affected our creative process for a while. But now it feels a little bit more like stopping, smelling roses, some self-reflection, and getting back to where we were when we had nothing to lose.
Do you feel that way now? Like you have nothing to lose?
John: I haven’t quite gotten there yet, but I think it’s just part of who I am as a person. A lot has happened in my life — got married, had kids. I mean, there was a global pandemic and a lot of other things, and I had some serious mental health struggles that I’ve gotten through. I’ve grown immensely as a person, but there’s still this pilot light that is burning in me, as hot as ever. A carrot is dangling in front of my face, and I’m like, “It’s right there. I’m gonna grab it!” and I don’t know if that’s ever gonna go away. I have to go against my intuition a lot of times and do what TJ says: remind myself that we’ve actually made it a million times more than I ever dreamed. But when I fall back into my old habits, I am right back working. I lay in bed thinking about it, and I think the difference between now and then is I’m aware that I do that, and I’ve come to terms with being okay with being that way, whereas back then I didn’t notice how unhealthy it was.
When you both moved here in the early 2000s, you lived and hung out with some aspiring artists who have since had success: Maren Morris, Kacey Musgraves, Charlie Worsham. Are you amazed that your friend group all made it?
John: I’m not amazed that any of them made it because they were all immensely talented. But there is a photo, and every once in a while, someone from our friend group shares it. We were all sitting in the living room of this place called Hotel Villa, right across the street from where TJ and I lived. So we would just walk across the street, and that’s where we would get stoned and jammed and play video games. The photo is all of us sitting…laughing, goofing off, all clearly very, very high and drunk, and having the best time ever. And there’s like several Grammys in this photo, and multiple awards, and Number Ones, and these musicians have played on huge records. But it’s like if you could have just told them that? They would never have believed.
TJ: We were so close [to having success], and I didn’t realize that until it clicked. But the catch is we were like, “Man, one day we can go and do a big tour together if this ever works.” And then a lot of people in that friend group went on to have a lot of success, which then led to us never seeing each other. We rarely get to hang out.
If we took you all and dropped you in 2026 at the level you were at then, would it still work?
TJ: It seemed nearly impossible to do it then. And as John said, we were just piss-ass broke and having a great time, and we did have talent, and we worked really hard, and a lot of skill was among everyone in that group, and the bar was really high, but now it’s not much really about that anymore. For better or worse, it just seems so much more fixed on the star quality aspect and not the talent aspect. Not to say you can’t have both, but you certainly need to have the social media presence now. You need to let people way into your life in a really overly intrusive way. That’s what people want, and I don’t know that I was capable of that then. I’m hardly capable of it now. And the other element that is really tough for any artist right now is just how expensive it is to tour. We went out on the road and did it the old-fashioned way. We had help with radio and we did all the things, but really we got in a 12-passenger van and hit the road and made fans the old school way. That’s not really how it’s done anymore.
John: There is a rose-colored glasses effect to anyone looking back for sure. But I am very grateful that we were pursuing this dream at a time when social media wasn’t around… It’s a bit more of a lonely island than it used to be. Now it’s like, “Okay, I got to get my camera and I’ve got to set up my little station and I got to post videos on the internet,” which is great. Like the fact that people have access to that and are doing that, awesome. More power to you. But you’re missing this amazing communal aspect, and I think the reason why that group did so well is because, yeah, they were talented, but we all made each other better.
TJ: And the time it takes to set the camera up and do the retry and the edits and the refilms, we were playing. We were writing songs. We were practicing guitar, and learning. Like Charlie Worsham, for instance, we lived literally right next door to each other on the same street for a long time, and all day, every day, you could just hear him shredding guitar.
Your new album Watertown is coming in October. Is that title an allusion to your hometown of Deale, Maryland?
John: Yeah, Watertown is definitely an allusion to Deale. We did our first video for “Rum,” like we’re going to go home and we’re going to shoot this video, and we did. It was awesome. I think it might be my favorite video. There’s so much nostalgia when watching it. And then you grow as a writer and a creator and you tour, you’re like, “I want to be bigger than my hometown.” I think everyone gets there at some point, and then you do it for a while and you realize, “Man, there’s nothing bigger than my hometown.” But every time we would go home to visit family or friends, we’re like, “Man, this place is just genuinely very special.”
TJ: It’s certainly unique. Very blue collar. It’s on the water, and it seems like it would be this very quaint little town, but it’s redneck. A lot of people are still so confused why we got into country music being from there. But if you’re there, it is so obvious why. So, this record was going back to our roots, but also kind of answering that perpetual question that has always been a cloud above us: why we’re in this genre, and why we sound the way we do.
You reunite with producer Jay Joyce for this album, after working with Mike Elizondo on 2023’s self-titled LP. John, you’re a producer too — you never thought about producing a Brothers Osborne record?
John: I tried, and it did not go well. We wanted to stay a band. So, when we did our first stuff, like “Rum,” we produced that. But I learned quickly that I hate it. You’re too close to it. It’s like when I’m working with an artist in the room and I’m producing them, I’m thinking, “How do I make this track sound really great and represent the song that they wrote or they’re singing?” And that’s it. Whereas [with Brothers Osborne], I’m like, “Okay when I play this part in the second version here, how am I going to stack? Will this work at radio?” I’m thinking about all the wrong things.
We had songwriter Laura Veltz on the podcast, and we asked Laura how she approaches songwriting or collaborating with someone with whom she may or not share the same cultural and political views. Watertown opens with a collaboration, “Born and Raised Hell,” with Cody Johnson. I am going to guess that perhaps you don’t see eye to eye politically.
TJ: We haven’t talked politics, but I would assume so myself.
So, how did you approach that, in this day and age where worldviews are so divisive?
TJ: Well, those collaborations had nothing to do with anything other than we respect Cody as a performer and a singer. There’s obviously differences there. There’s huge differences between he and I. Cody’s a great guy, and he may do things that other people disagree with, or I disagree with. But really, the sum of Cody Johnson is an awesome, awesome person. I consider him my friend, and I love that there is those differences there because, by the way, from his way back to us? He’s accepting us for who we are too, and I think that’s badass. So, when these collaborations came, we had “Born and Raised Hell” and we’re like, “Man, Cody would be amazing for this. His voice is just perfect for it.” We’ve known Cody for a long time before either of us really had a following. We hung out quite a bit back in the day, not a ton, but enough to know what someone is like, to their core. And he’s the same dude. Being in the studio with him was great. Being on stage with him at CMA Fest was great. He knows that he’s Cody Johnson, but he’s really a humble dude, and there’s so many common values that we do have. I’m a fan, and I’m also proud of the collaborations we did.
John: It’s also a testament too of where we grew up, and I wish everyone could see it because, like, it is no secret that we are quite progressive people. But also where we grew up, Maryland, blue state, but where we live is pretty purple. If anything, it’s a darker shade of red. But we just did everything together. A lot of our family, we have opposing beliefs, and is it frustrating? Yeah, it is frustrating, but you love them because you can see the human under there. And it goes both ways.
TJ: I try to figure this out all the time because look, there are sometimes where an artist might say something, and my impulse is to be like, “Oh my God, like I can’t deal with this.” But you know, I never think of that when I put Hank Jr. on, and he’s extremely controversial, and has said tons of things that I disagree with, but I will not even think twice about putting his music on.
John: I could tell you this: There has never been someone like, “Man, I really agree with them politically, but their music sucks, so I like their music.”
You’re doing something really unique with Watertown’s singles, something called “Sellout Edits.” Why are you taking that approach to releasing music?
TJ: Attention spans are short. You’re trying to get a clip on TikTok or Instagram, and it all has to be very snappy and fast, and I think you know there’s a lot of benefit to that, and it works. But also like it’s continuously chiseling away at this art, which is just playing music and letting it breathe and letting it be something that can you just sit at home and like give it a minute. One of the songs off the record, the intro to the record is several minutes — two guitar parts come in almost very like Skynyrd- esque.
John: Going to what TJ said, attention spans have gotten shorter. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to let the tail wag the dog and try to record something that’s a minute and a half long. We’re going to do what we do, but at the same time, here we are, 2026, and there are certain approaches to getting your music out there and released in certain formats. So, we are making edits. This isn’t nothing new, by the way. You can listen to them use it back in the Fifties and Sixites. A lot of 45s were just very short singles, and so fine, we’ll do the thing. But the plan is, “Check this out. If you like it, there’s more where that came from. There’s an even grander version.”
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone’s country-music podcast, Nashville Now, hosted by Deputy Editor, Head of Country Joseph Hudak, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts). New episodes drop every Wednesday and feature interviews with artists and personalities like Shania Twain, Shaboozey, Vince Gill, Lainey Wilson, Maggie Rose, Hardy, Charley Crockett, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Kings of Leon, Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, the Black Crowes, Braxton Keith, Carly Pearce, Amy Grant, Luke Grimes, Brandon Lake, Breland, Bryan Andrews, Noeline Hofmann, Adam Mac, Devon Gilfillian, Gavin Adcock, Amanda Shires, Shooter Jennings, Margo Price, Michaela Anne, Ink, Ne-Yo, Rival Sons’ Jay Buchanan, Halestorm, Dusty Slay, Lukas Nelson, Ashley Monroe, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor, Clever, Love on the Spectrum‘s Tyler White, Willie Nelson scholar John Spong, and authors Marissa R. Moss, Josh Crutchmer, Mark Gray, and Jonathan Bernstein.
