“There were ravines growing between me and people in my life,” Justin Osborne tells BandWagon. “And with COVID, everybody got pushed back together. Some of those changes had to be faced head on.”
Osborne is the commandant of North Carolina’s Susto and he’s just gone through some of the most intense years of his life.
“If humans are dimensional,” he says, “there’s a whole new dimension of myself that was awakened.”
Susto’s sound sits between Americana, psych-pop and the indie-rock church of rootsy folk. A mix of satire and earnestness adds a roughness; a raised eyebrow setting it apart from rural radio. Its dark, drug-influenced sentimentality and staunch idealism is, at its heart, just barefaced American songwriting.
“There were a lot of attempts at reconciliation – my own beliefs with how I was raised,” he says. “I’m trying not to disrespect,” he says, “but to participate in these big life events.”
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