Pierce Brothers are Australia’s Unofficial Gold Record holders
THEY’VE busked their butts off, and now the Pierce Brothers are bringing their blend of upbeat folk to wider audiences, thanks in part to high-profile fans such as Dan Sultan.
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PERCE Brothers are more popular than you think. The gutsy Melbourne folk-pop duo Jack and Pat Pierce have busked their butts off all over the world and sold a truckload of CDs simply by getting in people’s faces with their antics and music. So how many CDs do you think they’ve sold? 5000? 10,000? Higher. Try 43,000.
Astonishing.
The wide-smiling, 26-year-old twins recently rolled the dice and signed with major label Warner as well as Free Trade Agency in the UK, home to Ed Sheeran, War On Drugs and St Vincent. Fans of Paul Kelly, Powderfinger and John Butler Trio — who all busked at some stage — the lads have neat strategies.
“When busking we’d jump around, hit things with sticks and run around the street to make people look,” Jack says. “Then, once they’ve become interested then it’s up to the song itself and whether we’ve written it any good or not.”
Warner obviously think so; the boys signed with them because of their enthusiasm.
“We were understandably worried about signing any deal. We didn’t quite know exactly what it would entail. Our manager said not to sign with anyone who wasn’t jumping up and down … and while we had a lot of interest, we felt most comfortable with Warner.
“However, being a major label, it’s quite intimidating,” Pat acknowledges.
“Since working with them on our new tunes it has been amazing!” he says. These lads don’t really do jaded.
Interestingly, they have a plan to keep the sales ticking over. The boys are releasing a special Australian tour edition EP of The Night Tree that can only be purchased at upcoming shows.
“So here’s the run-down. We’re taking our single Overdose to radio in July, and we wanted to give something to our fans before we release the EP in winter. We basically want to say thank you because it’s been a while between new songs and they’ve given us such a huge life in music,” Pat says.
“These shows will have a little taster of the new EP and upcoming album and maybe some extra bits and pieces on it.”
Following in the footsteps of Xavier Rudd and their hero John Butler, the humble twosome recently played a few more busking gigs and the photos on their Facebook show a huge crowd milling and moving around.
Clearly, Pierce Brothers are no longer a secret; if they’re in your town they’re worth planning a shopping trip around.
Recently they supported Dan Sultan and the mutual appreciation society is evident. Sultan heard songs like It’s My Fault, Blind Boys Run and Flying Home and brought them on board.
“We’ve never played to a full sit-down (audience) before on a large-scale like this. It was challenging at first but we really enjoy playing to such an attentive audience who listen to every word. We really had to work on fine tuning our whole act,” Pat says.
“Dan is an expert at this!” Jack chips in. “We learnt so much from watching him perform and interact with the audience.”
Other parts of the world are hip to the long-hairs too.
“Walking out on stage in the Netherlands at the Lowlands Festival for our first ever European gig was mind blowing. We had an audience of about 8000-10,000 people and just couldn’t believe when people started to sing the words,” Pat says, with stoked eyes.
“Incredible. One of the most spiritual moments I’ve ever experienced,” Jack agrees.
The Dutchies dig them, they’ve just been added to the Pinkpop Festival line-up in Netherlands alongside Muse, Foo Fighters and Sam Smith and they’ve locked in two London shows in May. This year they will also play Canadian Music Week and The Great Escape in the UK.
The UK crowds get into the raucous nature of the Pierce Brothers’ show. One gig was “a rough as guts Irish bar and packed to the rafters with drunk punters. Things were getting rowdy. Next thing we knew there was about 20 people dancing on the tables,” Jack says.
Pat adds: “Something that had not happened at this pub before.”
Jack continues: “We didn’t really know if this was the norm — it wasn’t — so we started egging them on. “That’s it! Jump! Everyone jump!” With that all three of the tables in the pub broke with one table tipping up completely and three rather large intoxicated Irishmen landed on a lone woman next to the wall, smashing her into it,” Jack says gingerly. “We stopped as we realised how carried away we were getting. That is until the woman emerged, drink in hand yelling for more! And we all started again. Yeah, we didn’t go back to that pub.”
MELBOURNE DATES
Spirit Bar, 19 Kay St, Traralgon. Apil 17. $23.50, oztix.com.au; Westernport Hotel, San Remo, April 18, $23.50, 170 Russell, 170 Russell St, city, April 19 and (new show) 29, $22+bf, 170russell.com.au;
BRISBANE DATES
Solbar, 10/12-20 Ocean St, Maroochydore, April 23, $23.50, oztix.com.au;
Woolly Mammoth, 633 Ann Street, Fortitude Valley, April 24, Brisbane, $22+bf, ticketscout.com.au
SYDNEY DATES
Newtown Social Club, 87 King St, Newtown, April 25, $22+bf, ticketscout.com.au
Originally published as Pierce Brothers are Australia’s Unofficial Gold Record holders
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