ROLL THEM BONES

ON SKELETONS, BROTHERS OSBORNE’S BIGGEST AND LOUDEST ALBUM, AMPS RAGE AND SEETHE, HELL IS RAISED — AND THERE’S DAMN NEAR TOO MANY WALLOPING GUITAR SOLOS TO KEEP TRACK OF. BELOW, JOHN AND TJ OSBORNE LET THE SKELETONS OUT OF THE CLOSET

- JOE BOSSO

THERE WAS A FRESH AIR OF FEARLESSNESS AND DERRING-DO THROUGHOUT BROTHERS OSBORNE’S FIRST RECORDS — THE PAIR CAME ON LIKE YOUNG BUCKS EAGER TO SHOW OFF THEIR STUFF. THAT UNBRIDLED SPIRIT IS AT A FEVER PITCH THROUGHOUT SKELETONS

BROTHERS OSBORNE SINGER-GUITARIST TJ Osborne lets out a throaty, good-natured laugh when asked if he and his brother, John, felt more pressure cutting their third and latest album, Skeletons, than on their first two studio outings. “I assume that’s a rhetorical question,” TJ says before running down a list of hardships the country-rock duo endured. “First, John came down with tinnitus. That came out of nowhere right before we started recording, so we had to reschedule things a bit. He’s got it to a manageable place now, but that set us back. Then I got salmonella poisoning, I guess from eating under-cooked chicken. It took me a month to shake that off, although I was still recording vocals with cold sweats.”

Next, TJ recounts the tornado that tore through Nashville last March, an epic twister that ranks as the sixth-costliest tornado in U.S. history. “That was tragic for a lot of people in town, and many are still recovering,” he says. “As for how it affected us, we lost power in our studio for a week, so we ended up having to track the rest of the record elsewhere. And then COVID hit. We had to finish up the last bits while in quarantine.” He heaves a sigh and says, “You could say there was some pressure.” Beyond health issues and acts of God, there was another kind of strain the brothers experienced, although this one was self-inflicted. Following up their knockout 2016 debut,