Brothers Osborne Open up About Inspiration Behind ‘Port Saint Joe’

Brothers Osborne’s sophomore Port Saint Joe album will be out on Friday, April 20. The ten-track record was inspired by, and recorded in, the small Florida town where the siblings found their creative energies flowed.

“I went to Port Saint Joe years ago to play,” says John Osborne, adding he visited Port St. Joe after the BP oil spill in 2010. “The government gave a huge grant to this town that was affected by the oil spill and they used some of the money for a concert series and the band that actually played in Port Saint Joe. They set up a small stage and I thought it was really cool. I never thought I would go back to that place. I really enjoyed it. It was a nice little snapshot in time.

“I kind of forgot about it and then when we went down to Port Saint Joe to record our record, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is that place where we played that one random show where they don’t have concerts.’ It’s a really, really cool town.”

Brothers Osborne went to Port Saint Joe to work on their new record, unaware that the location would become the most important part of the project.

“I think it started off as [producer] Jay [Joyce] kind of brought it up one time,” TJ Osborne recounts. “We were meeting about doing the record and he said, ‘Man, it would be cool to get out of Nashville. I’ve got a beach house that we can go to and just kind of shack up in.’ I think partly it started because he just wanted to get out himself. He had been in his own studio for so long that I think everyone just kind of needed a change of scene. And it kind of started off almost like a joke that turned into, within a couple of days we were like, ‘Why don’t we do that?’ It would be nice for us as well, and I thought it helped the creative process to get out of the bubble of Nashville.

“And fast forward a couple of months we’re loading up a U-Haul truck and taking it down to his beach house,” he continues. “It made no sense other than it being an awesome place to record. There was just sand everywhere. It got all in his beer, and we were in this house that was not made for recording at all, which was kind of part of the charm. There was a lot of bleed and none of the doors had any foam or any isolation to them. It was really, really cool. It kind of felt like when you are playing music at home and you just love that jamming. You’re just sitting on your couch playing music, and I felt like that’s kind of what we captured.”

Brothers Osborne, who are the reigning ACM Vocal Duo of the Year, will hit the road with Dierks Bentley next month, to serve as the opening act on his Mountain High Tour. Dates can be found on their website. Pre-order Port Saint Joe on Amazon and iTunes.

Photo Credit: Instagram/brothersosborne