The Teskey Brothers on becoming parents, supporting Bruce Springsteen and why they broke up the band
Ahead of the release of The Teskey Brothers’ third album, singer Josh reveals the life changes that inspired it.
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It’s fair to say that a lot has happened for The Teskey Brothers since they released their last studio album four years ago.
That record, Run Home Slow, rose to No. 2 on the local charts and won three ARIA Awards, including Best Group and Best Blues and Roots Album and was also nominated for a Grammy.
Championed by the likes of Chris Hemsworth – who rocked some Teskeys gear as an ambassador for last year’s AusMusic T-shirt Day – it also earned them fans around the world, seduced by their timeless blend of old-school soul, rock and blues.
After crisscrossing the globe playing festivals and ever larger venues, and performing on Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the Run Home Slow tour finally ground to a halt in 2020, just in time for the entire world to shut down when the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
As if that wasn’t enough of a life-altering event, singer Josh Teskey and his guitarist brother Sam both became parents shortly after they returned to their home in Warrandyte, on the fringe of then locked-down Melbourne.
“I came home from Europe and had my daughter, Ayva,” says Josh with a fond smile over Zoom call from England where the band is on tour ahead of next week’s release of third album, The Winding Way. “Having kids in your life is a huge change and a beautiful time and then within the same lockdown we had another little baby, my son Romy, in August 2021.
“We had a beautiful period where things really slowed down and we were just becoming parents. Sam had his little daughter in that time, in June, as well. And when we came into writing this record, it was a hugely different process to anything we had done in the past. A huge part of this touring process and writing process is trying to be dads, trying to be family people and trying to do what we used to do and do it in a way that you can be present with your kids and have a good time with your family.”
The rest of the shutdown also proved to be creatively fruitful as the band recorded two live albums and the brothers each made side projects, but inevitably, the waves of intense emotions and love at becoming parents and being part of a family informed the writing of The Winding Way. Josh says that “it’s not so much an early-20s break-up record” as it is “a finding yourself kind of record”, as they reflected on how far they had come and grappled with their new experiences and responsibilities.
“It’s really talking about life and growing older,” he says. “We’re in our mid 30s here and talking about our journey and how relationships change and how your life changes.”
One of those fundamental changes came in the actual recording of the album. For the first time since the brothers founded the band in 2008, they didn’t use the ramshackle home studio built by carpenter Sam in the basement of what was once the family home.
Indeed, the first song on the new album is called I’m Leaving and Josh says it’s “based around saying goodbye to the studio and saying goodbye to that old house”. Even though he only moved up the road, leaving the old house – which evolved from his childhood home, to “open door policy” share house and then the first abode for his own family – felt like leaving behind a part of his youth.
Clearing out years of vintage analog gear (including Jimmy Barnes’ old 24-track tape machine) was a bittersweet task but in the end a rewarding one.
“I felt completely relieved to go ‘wow, we’re out’,” Josh says. “And I’m Leaving is all about that. But there was a sadness as well to say ‘hey, that was a beautiful space that we’ve loved so dearly’ … it’s hard to let go of some these things but you can’t hold on to them forever.”
To further shake things up, Josh and his brother opted to relocate to Sydney to record The Winding Way and enlisted the help of producer Eric J Dubowsky, who is better known for his work with dance artists such as The Chemical Brothers and Flume. It was a deliberate decision to choose someone outside their genre and while they found their ambition and sonic palette broadened by the collaboration, a few non-negotiables remained.
“I’d work in the morning on this record and I would always come home to do the naps because it was always in the middle of the day was the time my daughter would go to sleep,” says Josh. “So we’d take a break to do that and then get on with it.”
With The Winding Way about to make it its way into the world, The Teskey Brothers are now back in full (family-friendly) tour mode but stripped back to a two-piece outfit after parting ways with founding members Liam Gough and Brendan Love at the end of last year. Of the split, Josh says that “things come and go within any business or relationships”, and that it has given he and his brother the freedom to write the songs together and then find “find the best person for the job” to bring them life.
And unlike feuding musical brothers from bands such as Oasis, The Black Crowes and The Kinks, Josh says that whatever disagreements he and Sam might have at any given time get parked at the studio door.
“Me and Sam have this thing as brothers where any argument we have as a family, it doesn’t seem to come into our music,” he says. “It’s always been that when we come to music, this is work and we’ve always been a team and we just try to find the best answers for what we need for the songs.”
For all their highlights so far – felt all the more acutely given that both had day jobs in the decade it took them to become overnight successes – ex-plumber Josh says he’s still having “pinch-me” moments. Most recently, he’s still trying to get his head around a late call-up to the famous Glastonbury Festival and a support slot for Bruce Springsteen at the Italian Grand Prix.
“I like to think, as with any support, that Bruce hand-picked us, like ‘I want those guys’,” says Josh, with a laugh. “I don’t know if it was but all the same I am looking forward to being there. One way or another it’s going to be amazing watching him perform and be a part of this performance. What a legend. I have been following his whole career so we are very excited to be part of it.”
And after months overseas first in Europe and then the US, Josh is already counting down the days until the band gets to perform on home soil and he is able to return to his little piece of paradise with his family.
“I miss the space and the land and the freedom of being able to find a spot on a beach or in the bush to have the place to yourself,” he laments. “I miss my camping and getting out on the river in Warrandyte. We have been living in the cities for a long time, even though we are only three or four months in, I am looking forward to getting back to the bush.”
The Winding Way is out June 16. The Teskey Brothers tour nationally from November to January.
Tickets on sale June 16. Dates and details at frontiertouring.com.au
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Originally published as The Teskey Brothers on becoming parents, supporting Bruce Springsteen and why they broke up the band
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