The Teskey Brothers, a bluesy sounding, tight-knit four-member band from ‘down under,’ are making their way to Boston on Wednesday March 21st. Though they’re all the way from Warrandyte, Australia, about a half hour from Melbourne, they’re quickly making a name for themselves in towns across the globe. Just this week, drummer Liam Gough, took a few moments out of his jam-packed United States touring schedule to talk to New England Country Music.
The band formed ten years ago and consists of brothers Josh and Sam Teskey, bassist Brendon Love, and drummer Liam Gough. Gough explained: “We all grew up in the same town together and I think we met when we were early teenagers. We used to see Josh and Sam on the school bus, Brendon and I went to school together and we saw these two guys and we were like ‘hey they look pretty cool’ and we became friends and figured out that we all liked music and played music and the band sort of formed from there.” The style of music that they play is described by Gough as being “soul and blues.” They draw their musical influences from “Otis Redding, O.V. Wright, early Santana, and early Peter Green, from Fleetwood Mac.” According to Gough “we are mixing American and English blues and soul basically from the sixties to early seventies.”
The Teskey Brothers got their start local to Warrandyte. “We started out doing like really small gigs, parties and playing small pubs. It’s been a pretty crazy ride to go from playing small rooms to playing big festivals and sold out shows. It’s been a crazy ride.” Their very humble beginnings have led to the release of their first album in 2017, titled ‘Half Mile Harvest.’ “The album we produced and engineered ourselves at our own home studio in our hometown. Out in the bush we’ve got a little home studio and we just sort of went in there and wrote and recorded ourselves. We didn’t really know what we had at the time but people seem to enjoy it, enjoy the sound. We got out a bunch of old analog gear. We use a Studer A80 tape machine, 2-inch tape machine from the 70s that we record to. And a bunch of old analog gear just trying to recreate the sound from the 60s that we really love. Like a live sort of room feel. When we live record it or mostly live record it to get that sound.” ‘Half Mile Harvest’ has been gaining lots of followers via Spotify. Gough reflected, “It’s just been growing and gaining more support. We’ve got Spotify to thank for a lot of world-wide listeners.” It was hard to choose a favorite song off the album, but Gough went with ‘Pain and Misery.’ He also likes “fun things like ‘Honeymoon,’ the last track on the album which gets a bit more progressive and delves a bit deeper into the blues.” In addition to Spotify and word-of-mouth, The Teskey Brothers have ‘Thor,’ Chris Hemsworth, to thank for helping to get the word out. “He seems to be a big fan and he’s done a few shout-outs to us and it was pretty amazing. And I think people seem pretty impressed when they see that Thor is a fan of the band!” He went on to say, “It’s pretty amazing to have celebrities that people really look up to enjoying the music. It’s kind of validating in a way. It’s really fun.”
You may be asking, what does 2018 have in store for The Teskey Brothers? They’re heading back to Australia for a huge music festival named BluesFest, “which is probably Australia’s best music festival.” Gough said “We can’t believe we’re doing that. It’s sort of been a dream of ours for a long time.” They’re then heading to England, back to the United States, and to England again. In Gough’s own words: “It’s going to be a busy year!”
The Teskey Brothers just wrapped up “seven shows in three days!” If you’re hoping to catch them this week in Boston, their live performance will be “a very dynamic show.” “We draw the people in and keep them on the edge of their seats with what’s going on.” If you cannot make it on Wednesday, not to worry! They’ll be back in the states this July.
You can purchase tickets for the show on Wednesday 3/21 at Great Scott in Allston, MA here.
You can download ‘Half Mile Harvest’ on iTunes here. You can follow The Teskey Brothers on their website, on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.