Nashville’s favorite punk-rock sons JEFF the Brotherhood will return home to play three shows at The End this weekend.
JEFF consists of brothers, Jake and Jamin Orrall, who have been independently releasing music through their label, Infinity Cat Recordings, since 2002 and signed with Warner Music Group in 2011.
Even before JEFF the Brotherhood, the brothers Orrall were surrounded by music early on.
“We just kinda started playing when we were kids,” Jake said in a phone interview Wednesday afternoon. “We grew up in the country…there weren’t many other kids around.”
On top of their early start, the duo are the sons of Robert Ellis Orrall, a prolific songwriter/producer who co-produced Taylor Swift’s self-titled debut. However, the world of mainstream country music didn’t have much influence on on the band’s heavy garage and punk sound.
“We weren’t really coming up in that atmosphere,” Jake said. “We were a punk band playing punk shows in basements. The whole country music world didn’t really enter into our world at all.”
The band’s popularity has exceeded the average basement’s capacity throughout the last decade, receiving critical acclaim and touring heavily along the way.
“The biggest change would be, being 15 years older, and having all that experience under our belts,” Jake said. “It’s a different experience now, in that, when were were kids we didn’t know what the hell we were doing just messing around the studio for fun. And now, it’s like we have a very purposeful [process].”
This weekend’s gigs will take place tonight through Sunday and are in support of the duo’s new covers EP, Digs the Classics, which was released on Sept. 30 and includes songs originally by The Pixies, Beck and My Bloody Valentine.
“We made a list of bands that we like and thought would be fun and went through each one of those bands and tried to find songs that that we thought sounded like they could translate into JEFF the Brotherhood songs,” Jake said of the selection process for Dig the Classics.
“We tried to pick songs we know we could make versions of that don’t sound anything like the original.”
Tickets for JEFF the Brotherhood’s three shows at The End are available at the Infinity Cat Visitor’s Center, Grimey’s, The Groove and Fond Object.
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