There’s something romantic about SUSTO’s roadworn rise to fame. Since Nov. 2015, the Charleston, South Carolina alt-country group has been traveling coast to coast, trying to carve out a name for itself through a flurry of awesome live sets. So far, it’s worked. The band’s current headlining tour has been populated with fans it earned back in February while supporting Athens, Georgia indie rockers, Futurebirds.
The fact that SUSTO has a wealth of amazing material to play night after night also helps. Songs like “Friends, Lovers, Ex-Lovers, Whatever” off the group’s 2014 self-titled record or “Hard Drugs” off a soon-to-be-released new album recall the confessional vulnerability and tongue-in-cheek attitude of outlaw country stalwarts like Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, and Townes Van Zandt.
This honest approach to songwriting grew out of experiences SUSTO’s frontman and main tunesmith Justin Osborne had while studying in Cuba throughout 2013. It was a strange place to go for a kid who grew up in a devoutly religious family from rural South Carolina (around an area called Puddin’ Swamp, to be exact) and was even a cadet at the state’s top military school, The Citadel.
It was an even stranger place to go for a guy who left his faith and studies behind to form an acoustic-driven emo outfit called Sequoyah Prep School and tour the states for a number of years. But, beyond anything else, Cuba helped define SUSTO and, therefore, Osborne as an adult.
“I always wanted to be doing this right now,” he says. “But I didn’t think I’d be almost 30 before starting. I’ve learned a lot.”
In this exclusive interview, Osborne tells AXS what he learned and what’s next.
AXS: So how is tour life?
Justin Osborne: Tour has been good. I guess we’ve been on this tour for two weeks but, really, we’ve been our tour for about seven months, with very little time at home. And when we’ve been home we’ve been working on our upcoming record and a documentary. So we’ve been extremely busy.
AXS: In Aug. 2015 you signed with the Paradigm Talent Agency. Is this the reason you’ve been touring so much?
JO: This trip, we went out to Stagecoach and that was one of the first things Paradigm bough to the table. It’s basically the country and americana version of Coachella. It’s a really, really cool festival. We had a blast out there and got a Gretsch (guitar) sponsorship out of it!
AXS: Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell is a big SUSTO fan. Is he collaborating on new album? Did he help you sign with Paradigm?
JO: A lot of the stuff that’s happened didn’t come directly from Ben, but things that he’s done have certainly helped. Because of him, we got hooked up with a bad*ss lawyer and having him as the first member of our team really helped build the rest of the team. We got to open three shows with Ben and Iron & Wine when they did they collaborative tour. That helped us seal the deal with Paradigm, who were really interested anyway.
AXS: Is he collaborating on new album?
JO: Absolutely. Ben drops into the studio and he has the dropbox (of our demos). We really trust his opinion. We agree on some things and disagree on other things, but it’s always valued.
AXS: Speaking of SUSTO’s albums, what drew you to such a pop-affected, alt-country sound?
JO: Whenever I first started listening to music, Green Day’s Dookie was out on cassette and Sublime was playing on some early version of TRL, so I always liked the pop, alternative stuff of the 1990s. But there was this big, underground punk scene in Charleston, so I also got into pop punk. My first concert was New Found Glory. Then, when I started touring. I started meeting people and playing places and got more exposed to outlaw country. I was still into this trip-hoppy, alternative stuff, so I think there’s some of that mix on the first album.
AXS: And how did studying in Cuba help mold SUSTO’s sound?
JO: Cuba was a lot more of a lyrical influence; to be more lighthearted and dark at the same time. I remember the first thing I did when I got back from my first trip to Cuba was sit in my room and write “Vampiro 66,” because there was this movie called “¡Vampiros en la Havana!” that we watched that I loved. It was a political satire that was very sexy and very light and it was a cartoon! Plus the Trova style of songwriting there is very confessional and also playful with the darker things in life.
AXS: Why’d you decide to go to Cuba?
JO: I was interested in Latin American leftist movements and I wanted to learn more about them. The program I enrolled was going to be about the Cuban Revolution, taught by Cubans, so I knew that there was going to be some exposure to different ideologies. Then, I got down there and, while I’m still very interested in the politics of Latin America, that kind of de-romanticized it a little bit. So I got more into the beautiful thing about Cuba: The real, natural culture of the people. I started playing music and had a good time and got real reinvigorated. People would come listen to you without any reservations. With my old band, it was not cool enough for some people. In Cuba, everyone was really open to it and it gave me a lot more confidence.
AXS: You’ve had the opportunity to witness a country that most people will only see in pictures. Do you think Cuba is a place Americans should visit?
JO: It’s going to be great for the Cuban people. Cuban people don’t give a f*** about our nostalgia. They get it, and a lot of them make money off it. That’s still going to be there. The people driving their old cars around as Taxis are still going to be there. But (young) Cuban people want to be able to have Wi-Fi and iPhones and have bands come play there. And think that, maybe, if they start a band, they can go tour in the US. There are a lot of dead ends there because of the embargo the US imposed. I won’t get into the politics of it, because that’s super cloudy, but it’s just going to be a really solid thing for them to be allowed back into society.
AXS: Are you ever gonna go back?
JO: Yes. Our house in Charleston is called the “Australian Country Music Hall of Fame.” It’s a classic Charleston single house built before the civil war. It’s a s***hole, but a ton of people from the music scene float through there. We did a live, follow-up album to our debut record. It was eight songs, kind of stripped down, played live, in the house, where we had written the songs, in front of a house show-sized audience. We released it and it’s called “Live from the Australian Country Music Hall of Fame.” After the next record comes out, we’re going to Cuba to record in the same style; a house show performance for some of my friends there. We’re going to call it “Live from the Caribbean Country Music Hall of Fame.”
AXS: Will that adventure show up in SUSTO’s upcoming documentary? What is it about?
JO: It’s about everything. We’ve been filming for 8 months, working with these two guys who are really committed and doing really great work. There’s studio footage. A little bit of the story, too. We have hours of interviews.
AXS: The doc is called “Tour or Die,” right?
(At this point, SUSTO drummer Marshall Hudson chimes in.)
Marshall Hudson: That’s not the official title of it, but it could be. It’s kind of a comment on the state of them music industry. We sort of live in a golden age of live music. The Who toured their “last who show you can ever see” in ’87. Now, there’s a festival that with them, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Everybody has to get out there and play, even the f***ers who are going to die on stage (laughs)! That’s just the nature of the business now.
JO: We got 401k plans, right (laughs)? We definitely all love life and want to live life simply. It doesn’t matter what “hitting it big” on an album is, because who knows how big it’s going to hit it. We’re planning to tour for the next two or three years on just how long this album cycle lives, especially if it really does take off in a way that we think it can, we’re going to have to make the rounds.
Epilogue
After this interview, SUSTO’s five members stood outside of Denver’s Larimer Lounge and proceeded to cut guitarist Johnny Delaware’s scraggly mop of hair. That’s how dedicated each member is to “making it.” So invested, they’ll be each other’s impromptu, on-the-road stylists. Check out more about the band right here.
