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Two weeks ago, The Pierce Brothers – 35-year-old twins Patrick and Jack – had the No.1 Australian album on the ARIA Chart. On Tuesday, they’ll be busking for spare change in Melbourne’s City Square.
For once, though, this isn’t a story about the fickle nature of the music industry. It’s a tale of going back to where it all began … give or take a few hundred metres.
Twins Pat (left) and Jack Pierce – aka The Pierce Brothers – first attracted attention busking near Bourke Street Mall. They’re now a global touring act with two ARIA #1 albums to their name.Credit: Jason South
“We started busking just there – just there,” says Jack, pointing excitedly from the portico of the former GPO building where we’re having coffee to a spot on the Elizabeth Street footpath, just a few metres from Bourke Street.
“We weren’t allowed to play in the mall yet because you have to be busking for six months before you can apply to audition for a spot there.”
The brothers were both in their final year of uni – Jack doing a double degree in commerce and communications at Monash, Pat studying filmmaking at Swinburne – when musician friends suggested they give busking a go.
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“They told us, ‘it’s the best thing for your career’,” says Jack. “And in one 45-minute set, we made about 600 bucks. And we’re like, ‘OK, there’s something in this’.”
It wasn’t the first time they’d played, of course, just the first time they’d done it on the street in front of a bunch of strangers who hadn’t deliberately turned up to see them. They already had a self-recorded EP on CD, and over the first two years of busking, they moved more than 50,000 copies of it – a better result than any recording they’ve released since via their major-label deal.
You won’t find that one on the charts, though, “because it wasn’t ARIA accredited”, says Pat with just a tinge of regret. But they’ve made up for it with both Moonrise, the new album, and last year’s Everything Is Bigger Than Me hitting the top spot.
Patrick John (Pat) and John Patrick (Jack) first picked up guitars in their early teens, and by 15 they had landed their first paying gig at the Dorset Gardens TAB in Croydon, just down the road from home in Ringwood. But it wasn’t the most auspicious of starts.
“We were halfway through a cover of Hotel California when these two guys got into an argument, and one smashed a pint glass over the other’s face,” recalls Pat. “We sort of stopped and froze, and then the bouncer just looks up and goes, ‘No, you guys are great, keep going’.”
There’s not a lot of trickery at a Pierce Brothers show, but there’s an abundance of energy and crowd interaction.Credit: Daniel Pockett
They’re not short of a bit of that Donnybrook energy themselves. “We fight all the time,” says Pat. “We have pretty big Gallagher brothers vibes sometimes. Things have gotten better, but we’ve had some pretty big barneys on the road.”
Through busking, the brothers quickly learnt the importance of grabbing an audience’s attention, and within six months of that first street show they were playing their full-throttle folk-rock originals, informed by their Irish heritage and with echoes of Mumford and Sons and The Frames, in front of 10,000 people at a festival in Holland.
“It really developed and directed the way we perform,” says Jack, who plays a standing drum kit and sings, while Pat plays guitar and sings (live, they play with a third member, Irishman Dara Munnis, on keyboard). “I’m running around, climbing the trusses, jumping into the audience, taking sticks with me and hitting them on stuff, and there’s a lot of back and forth with the audience.”
Busking could be incredibly lucrative – one Boxing Day, they raked in about $6500 – but it was exhausting too. “We were playing six sets a day, five days a week,” says Pat. “We were so fit.”
They gave up the street performances almost a decade ago, but return every Christmas for a set or two in the city, with all proceeds going to charity. This year they will do two half-hour sets on December 23 in City Square, near the entrance to the new Town Hall station.
“We’ve got pretty big Gallagher brothers vibes,” says Pat. “We’ve had some pretty big barneys on the road.”Credit: Jason South
“It’s fun and it reconnects us with a lot of our old audience in Melbourne,” says Jack. “But it’s a really different experience to playing on stage.
“Coming back to busking, it’s really hard,” he adds. “You have to give a lot more energy because it’s a scary thing to do and you’re not sure if anybody’s going to engage.”
Are you saying that you’re OK playing in front of big festival crowds, but you get a little stage fright going back to the street?
“Oh yeah, I think so, yeah,” he says. “And I get way more exhausted. I’m wrecked after just two sets.”
The Pierce Brothers will play from midday to 12.30 and 1pm-1.30pm on Tuesday, December 23 at City Square. The Australian leg of their new album tour begins at the Port Fairy Folk Festival in March. Details: piercebrothers.com
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