Pierce Brothers

But success did not come overnight for these identical twins. Having sold more than 50,000 EPs independently, Jack and Pat Pierce have toured relentlessly around Australia, and more recently the world, to break into as many markets as possible. Recorded by Jan Skubiszewski (Dan Sultan, John Butler Trio) at the Way Of The Eagle Studios in Melbourne earlier this year, their Into The Dirt EP sees the brothers take a mature step towards becoming the next big folk-pop band out of Australia.

“Because we only had four tracks to record due to the fact that we have been touring so much, we really wanted to get out a couple of songs just before we do an album,” explains Jack Pierce. “We tried to produce a really diverse range of songs in the studio. With ‘Monsters’, we kind of decided to do a bit more of a rock thing. When we created the riff, it had like a Powderfinger vibe, which we loved.

“We are really happy with the EP. It has a bit more of an edgier sound than previous releases, but this is the direction I feel that we are going to go in.”

What makes Pierce Brothers so irresistible is the atmosphere they seamlessly create at their live shows. Forget all predispositions of folk duos; these guys know how to get a crowd moving.

“Busking has really shaped our stage presence when playing live,” says Jack. “When we were busking on the streets, we felt like we really had to jump around, do summersaults or play drumsticks on a bin to make people stop and look at us. If we got them to stop and look, then that was great because they would then get to enjoy the music we were playing.

“That whole idea of us having to earn the crowd’s respect and enjoyment hasn’t left us from the streets. Whether we are playing festivals, or are a support act, we have worked really hard to give it our all to give these crowds an exciting show. I think this could be a factor as to why we have had these opportunities to play overseas so much in the last few years and play pretty big festivals. We try and make it all about the live show and go crazy for all of our fans.

“When we were busking, we had a bit of spare money lying around, so we always tried to take our show around the country,” says Jack. “We had a mentality that if busking can be our day job, then on the weekend we could head up to Sydney and break into other markets. We really tried to do this in all different places. Even today, we found out that both of our shows in the Netherlands have sold out, which is crazy because we have never even played a headline show in the Netherlands. We were really shocked by this. But it was kind of the same formula to our success in Australia. We moved to a new market and tried it out and kept working at it.”