The laudable country duo on their upcoming American Performance Horseman show and what’s next for brothers TJ and John Osborne.
C&I: First let’s talk Texas, since you’re the musical guests at this year’s American Performance Horseman on July 19 in Fort Worth. Even though you aren’t from Texas, nobody in Nashville really plays Texas as much as you guys do. Is that intentional?
John: It just naturally happened that way. Our music does lean quite organic. And Texas has always been known for very organic music: a couple guitars, drums, bass and keys, and a vocalist. On the Venn diagram, there is some overlap between what we do and what Texas artists do.
C&I: I have to ask about the new song “Finish This Drink.” I read how you guys would ask your dad to leave a party and he’d say, “Let me finish this drink.” I was the youngest of six kids and always begging my mom to leave. She’d be like, “Right after this cigarette.” This song takes me back, but in a good way.
John: It was always, “After this one, I’ll do it after this last cigarette,” or “After this last drink, or after this drink.” So that’s exactly where it stems from.
TJ: By the time we came around, [our parents] already had kids. They were in their 40s and they did not give two shits about what we were doing. Later in life, our dad would inevitably piss off our mom because he said he’d be gone for a short period of time and would be gone all night. As I’ve grown, I’ve realized how easy that is. You expect to be home at a reasonable hour. Next thing you’re closing the bar down.
C&I: I think everyone has a story like that. But this song hasn’t been done before. And that is so rare.
TJ: That is always the biggest chase for us. We try super hard not just to write love songs. Then the next thing always seems like drinking songs. We don’t need another drinking song. But I was at Waffle House and thought of this song and how it’s a drinking song but you’re trying not to drink. I had the slinky honky-tonkness of it.
C&I: Is it true you rehearsed in a backyard shed as kids?
TJ: It was two different rooms. One had a really, really ratty upright piano in it. And just tons of ropes and pulleys and pipe wrenches. Behind it was where the lawnmowers went. Our dad was a plumber, so it was lots of copper and PVC piping. One little section had music instruments, cables and a reel to reel. We had that childlike sense of wonder every time we’d go in there, pretending we were radio DJs or making up silly songs.
C&I: It seems like for the rest of your family, music was more of a hobby. So for the two of you, what made you think, “We can take this seriously”?
John: We would gig in our hometown, four-hour bar gigs, and we would make a hundred bucks. And you realize when we’re plumbing with our dad, we were making money and it was horrible. Or we play a bar for hours and make more money. And it was so much fun. But it wasn’t like we set out with this particular ambition. We just knew we wanted to come to Nashville and see what happened.
C&I: And since your first success a decade ago, you’ve been nominated for a Grammy just about every year.
John: And for every Grammy you see on TV, there’s 10 to 15 Grammys that you don’t see of really cool artists that don’t get the spotlight. It’s still an amazing achievement and gives people a true north.
TJ: When you do win, it is invigorating. But especially for us having been nominated so many times, to finally bring one in and to do it with a song (“Younger Me”) that was really wasn’t even meant for anything. It was just truly created from a place with something the soul needed to say. It felt serendipitous that all those roads across intersected at that moment.
From our July 2025 issue.
