Pierce Brothers

The Shebeen Bandroom feels all mellow as the charming Sean Pollard sings for eager beavers bagging prime viewing spots. Over at the merch table, a guy buying the new Pierce Brothers EP The Night Tree is overheard making the following request to an autograph-signing Pierce bro: “If you can draw a dick and balls on that, I'd be much obliged.”

Folky Adelaidean Timberwolf begins with an attention-grabbing cover of James Blake's Retrograde. In between his dreamy, atmospheric solo numbers, he spins some great yarns including that time he thought he did a shit-fart on the road trip to Melbourne. Gold.

The crowd gets all hot and pushy as Pierce Brothers begin the fourth date of a five-night sold out Shebeen stand. FYI, world: Pat's the one with dreads while Jack just rocks a messy ponytail – that's the best way to distinguish these good-looking twins tonight. Tracks Tallest Teepee In Town and Audacity blast intense, energetic, folky goodness all over the place to begin.

Guitars are thrashed so hard that strings are busted pretty much every song. The stomp box is thumped like a metronomic heartbeat giving life to the whole room. The guys take jubilant swigs of whisky and confess their love for writing miserable, self-loathing songs such as It's My Fault. Djembes, floor toms, Pat's guitar – Jack uses anything and everything for percussive effect. Once the whisky has gone to his head, Jack jumps on a speaker to beat on the overhead sprinkler pipes. The best totemic dance move of the evening debuts during Golden Times – Jack holds a harmonica up to Pat's mouth from one side while stretching a didgeridoo towards a mic from the other. It's weird, stunning and totally great.

Fuelled by further whisky shots, which are helpfully lined up backstage by Timberwolf, the boys burst back out for the encore. A touching, bromantic moment unfolds over an open E-tuned track when Jack throws his arms around Pat and takes over the guitar neck, leaving Pat free to strum and play harmonica. The drunken times go up a notch when Jack jumps from the stage and dances behind the bar, drumming the shit out of the top of the bar, drinks menu and tip jar.

Like a next-generation John Butler Trio, Pierce Brothers have nothing but greatness ahead. The guy who scored the dick and balls-autographed CD has got it made. - The Music.com.au - Annelise Ball

It’s been four months since we spoke with folk twins The Pierce Brothers, the Melbourne duo who have “exploded as one of Australia’s must-see up -and-coming live acts. ” In the past four months the boys have released their Night Tree EP which on the day of release cracked #7 Alt iTunes chart and #33 on the overall iTunes chart. Shortly after, the EP debuted at #21 on the ARIA Album chart, #7 on the ARIA Australian Album chart, and #1 on the AIR Album chart. They’ve now sold FIVE Shebeen shows for the launch of Night Tree and have been offered a spot on an international festival alongside Boy And Bear, Vance Joy, Chet Faker, Flume. Pretty impressive work from a pair of brothers who still busk in Melbourne’s CBD. We caught up with the Pierce Brothers to see what exactly they’ve been up to.

Seeing that it’s been four months since we last chatted about your incredible (completely independent) success, what’s been happening? Have you sold many more records?

Jack: “The trend has been pretty steady since we last spoke. I’d say we’ve gone through another 10,000-12,000 units of Blind Boys Run (2013) and The Night Tree (2014) combined. It’s absolutely astounding! We’ve definitely hit 25,000 units combined by now! It’s incredible.”

Pat: “The last 3 months we’ve been going from strength to strength on all sides, and it’s started moving faster than any of us anticipated! Before long we’re hoping to be the first practising buskers to headline the Forum…maybe…. not.”

You’ve recently released your Night Tree EP, how has it been received?

Jack: “Reception for the Night Tree has been pretty amazing! At our first of five Melbourne launch shows we had everyone singing along to the tracks on it already, which blew us away. We’ve been getting some awesome reviews of late, and it’s been getting airplay on Triple J, Triple M and even FOX FM!”

Pat: “Needless to say, we were definitely not expecting to hit commercial stations as much success as we’ve had, so we’re absolutely stoked!”

Can you run us through what an ‘average day in the office’ (busking) is for you guys at the moment?

Pat: Generally I’ll wake up at around 9am (please don’t judge us, we’re musicians!) and potter around the house doing the odd job or Piece Brothers paperwork, then I’ll head over to pick up Jack at around 10ish, and drive into the city.

Jack: Depending on weather and other buskers we’ll be started by either 11:30 or 12pm and we’ll play half hour on/half hour off for about 6 hours. It’s almost a standard work day, but then we go and get a beer afterwards or see a show! Can you tell us a little about your upcoming local shows? We’ve heard some pretty impressive stats…

Jack: “(laughs) Yeah, at first we were bragging about selling out two shows, then three.. Once the 5th sold out we had to stop, we were just looking like twerps!”

Pat: “We never expected to fill the THIRD show, let alone sell out the fifth two weeks out!”

Jack: “We don’t even know how to approach five sold out shows in a row, as our set is quite high energy and it really takes it out of us! I went onto Gumtree and bought a juicer, so I could keep my fruit and veg intake up, and the guy who’s house I went to pick it up was just about to put on one of our CDs. He opened the door and said “are you one of the Pierce Brothers?” and I said “…yeah… I’m here for the juicer?” It was hilarious!”

How do most of your fans find out about these shows/ you guys?

Pat: “Most of our communication to our fans would be directly through busking or through our online social media, primarily Facebook, which has boomed in recent weeks!”

Jack: “All the traffic from that we’d say has come from a mixture of busking, radio play, word of mouth and shows! This new EP has certainly played a massive hand in it, I reckon. Things since the new EP have been jumping rapidly and I personally reckon it’s due to the new record.”

We heard you are off to the Netherlands soon, why are you heading over there? What’s in store for that trip?

Pat: “Lowlands Festival. Fucking. Lowlands. Festival.”

Jack: (Laughs) “What he means is, picture this: seven Australian acts which are; Boy And Bear, Vance Joy, Chet Faker, Flume, Dub FX, Cat Empire… and us. Now, those are some of the most influential names in Australian music, and somehow we’ve managed to make that list! 180,000 tickets have sold out!”

Pat: “It’s been pretty crazy as we’ve never been to the Netherlands, but the new single ‘It’s My Fault’ has been getting loads of radio play over there and the following is just growing. We were booked into Lowlands about a month after we started getting a whole lot of media attention there, and we can’t believe it. Other acts include Snoop Dog, London Grammar and The National, it’s insane!”

Jack: “The rest of the time we’re just gaining to be seeing as much of the country as possible, but we don’t have long there though.”

And finally what’s happening with you guys for the rest of the year?

Pat: “We’re going to spend about a month in the Netherlands, meeting and greeting and doing a bunch of press, then we’ll (hopefully) be busking a tonne and spending the rest of the time writing our debut album. We’ve started working on the new stuff recently and we’re getting really excited! At the Melbourne launches we’ve been teasing the crowds with an unfinished idea or two in the encores, it’s been great!” Jack: “I’m just looking at getting through this next few days of shows before I can give you a straight answer! At the start of the year I didn’t think we’d be where we are now, and already there are some very exciting things in the pipe works which we can’t wait to share with everyone, so definitely stay tuned!” - ToneDeaf