Country duo Brothers Osborne ready to play Lexington without a filter

T.J. Osborne is in no mood for sugar-coating his first performance experience in Lexington. The year was 2014 and the baritone-voiced singer was in town with guitarist/sibling John during their early days as the country duo Brothers Osborne.

The occasion: the popular July 4th celebration known as Red, White and Boom at the then-named Whitaker Bank Ballpark.

“It was one of our worst performances ever,” he recalled. “We still talk about it.”

What was so awful about that show? Osborne isn’t saying. At least, not yet. But come to the Opera House on Sept. 20 for the duo’s first local concert since then and you may get to hear the whole ugly saga. Maybe.

“It’s kind of a long story, kind of involved,” he said. “There were about 30 reasons why it was so bad. You want to know? Come to the show.”

Returning to Lexington

To do that, you will need to act fast. Only a handful of tickets remain for the performance. In the decade since the mysterious debacle, Brothers Osborne has earned a massive following, a Grammy, numerous trophies at the Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music awards and considerable headlines for its offstage profile.

There have been hits, as well — blends of traditional inspiration and contemporary accessibility that surfaced as “Stay a Little Longer” (the duo’s 2015 breakout single), “It Ain’t My Fault” and “All Right.”

What brings Brothers Osborne back to Lexington this week is its fourth studio album, a record that is untitled. Usually, a debut recording is eponymously named to enhance its sense of introduction. When an artist employs that strategy on a later project, it is often a sign of confidence, an assertion that its identity is firmly established. Brothers Osborne’s is indeed that but for perhaps for partly unexpected reasons.

“That even goes for the cover of the album, too (a stark close-up shot of the two artists.) We’ve always been off in the distance or silhouetted before. This time it’s just us not hidden. It’s just our faces up close. It’s not about the clothes, it’s not about the scenery. It’s about us. We haven’t really leaned into that before. We’ve always kept a little bit of a mystery, a veil there — sometimes artistically and sometimes just because we wanted to have a place to be that vulnerable.

“At this point, it was like, ‘We’ve got nothing to hide here anymore. We wanted to come in and musically just do things a little different. We wanted to take ownership of that and show a little more pride as to who we are, what we’re about and what our music sounds like.”

Changes since disastrous Lexington show

If the cover photo to “Brothers Osborne” is a big reveal, so have events been in the years since the duo’s last album, 2020’s “Skeletons.” John has discussed in interviews his struggles with anxiety and depression while T.J, in 2021, came out as gay — still a demographic rarity in country music circles.

“There was a lot of going on as we went into this album,” T.J. said. “Do we talk about these things specifically? We’ve talked about them in interviews and stuff. I think most people know all about them at this point, at least I hope they do. So with this record, we were in a space to create without any sort of filter.

“The worst thing for creating is having any set of rules, parameters or guidelines saying, ‘We can’t do this, we can’t do that.’ With those things, you’re eliminating all these possibilities of something that could have been something great. Unfortunately, through a lot of my creative life, I’ve had to do that publicly. Coming into this album, we had this freedom to create and ultimately, the songs, the production and everything were just better because of it. Even though people mostly knew who we were and what we’re about, they didn’t know the entirety of it until now. So everything feels a lot more free, a lot more like we’re able to connect with the music and, ultimately, the fans.”

So how have the country music industry, country radio and especially audiences taken to T.J.’s coming out?

“Well, definitely the industry has been supportive. When it comes to the fans, I think most of them have been there for us. We slowly started broadcasting what we’re about, who we are and what we believe early in our career for this reason, that we would get here and it wouldn’t be a sharp left turn for anyone. But there are certainly people who don’t like it. Naturally, in country, there are a lot of conservative fans. I don’t lose any sleep over trying to figure out what it is that they like or don’t like. I mean, there are just some people who you’re never going to please. If there is someone who has that hate in their heart, I don’t really want them in the room with the rest of our fans anyway because they’re just going to be kind of a buzzkill. I would just rather have a bunch of people who are totally open to being themselves or just open to letting other people being themselves.

“Politically, I’ve noticed more lately that there seems to be this rallying politically against a lot of LGBT+ culture. I definitely feel a change in energy there from where people were maybe a little more open to it before. Now they feel they have to pick a side. I just hope people, even if they are conservative or right-leaning, are able to see into humanity. There are plenty of people who do that. I see that every day. There are tons of people I see at our shows who have very conservative t-shirts on or very right-leaning t-shirts on. They ultimately know these things about me and have chosen to show up and be supportive anyway, and that says a lot.”

Ultimately, though, Brothers Osborne is just that — a group of two siblings. With that, comes a personal bond, a sense of creative intuition and, yes, maybe a little friction unique to the family that plays together.

“Certainly, it comes with highs, lows and challenges. Just trying to have an opinion with a family member can be grounds for an argument. Given that element, I think we’ve gotten really good at working with each other and respecting each other.

“It’s just been really interesting to see the things we’ve been able to do, the dreams we’ve been able to make into reality in our lives. Getting to share it with my brother, to have that connection, is one of the coolest things.”

Brothers Osborne, Kassi Ashton and Joss Ross

When: Sept 20 at 7:30 p.m.

Where: Lexington Opera House, 401 W. Short St.

Tickets: $59.50-$248.50 through ticketmaster.com.

This story was originally published September 18, 2023 at 6:00 AM.