5 Questions with The Cerny Brothers

Born to an Army engineer dad and a Spanish-born mom, Scott and Robert Cerny grew up in western Illinois near the border with Iowa. After living for a while in Los Angeles, the two began making demos for their most recent album at Bob’s house in Nashville, and then tracked the project using world-class Nashville musicians. The Cerny Brothers released Looking for the Good Land in the spring and have been touring hard ever since. DittyTV Senior Editor Tim W. Jackson connected with the brothers for this 5 Questions segment. Robert answered the first four questions, while Scott chimed in on No. 5.

1) First, you guys grew up a couple of hours from two places I lived in my very young days: Rockford and Havana, Illinois. I suppose that’s not particularly important. Still, it does raise the question for me about when were you guys first sincerely interested in music and who were your early influences there in rural Illinois?

Robert – Since we can remember, we always had a sort of internal need for self-expression that seemed to be more finely tuned then everyone else around us at the time. So by the time we were 12 and 13, we were writing our own songs on the upright our parents had in the house instead of practicing our scales for our next piano lesson. We didn’t have too much of an interest in reading music out of a book, but instead gravitated toward making our own musical compositions.

Our influences were curated by the MTV era, in the time when they still played music videos and (the show) TRL. We were heavily influenced by the punk phenom, with the likes of Blink-182 and harder bands like the Deftones. Green Day, Weezer and many others were a part of that early childhood angst scene that was going on in the Midwest, and that was the stuff we and everyone else was listening to.

2) You guys are just winding down a U.S. tour that included some dates with Justin Townes Earle (among others). What do you guys learn about yourselves, your music, and the country when you hit the road?

Robert – Every time we get in the van and hit the road, we expect something to happen. There’s always a story, often an adventure, sometimes a life lesson. We feel like you can grow more in three weeks on the road than three months at home. The sheer amount of experiences you can have in one night playing a show is kind of amazing. I think it would be impossible for that not to change you in some ways. We really love the opportunity to meet all kinds of people from all different parts of the country. Sometimes it feels like each state is a different country on its own and they are held together only by threads because of our common history. And you think that it’s amazing that we’ve all stayed together this long considering how different we all are. A progressive city like San Francisco feels like a different universe than rural Texas. How are these people supposed to agree on anything? Even so, meeting all these people has definitely showed us that we share not only a common history but a common thread of humanity. And everyone at the end of the day is looking for a place to fit in, a community that understands them, a little bit of comfort, a little bit of peace. We’re not that different.

3) You’ve been touring in support of your album Looking for the Good Land, which released back in the spring. What messages did you want to send to listeners with this album, and are you pleased with how the album has been received?

Robert – Looking for the Good Land is essentially about us as artists and Americans in search of our identity and a place we can proudly call home. Part of it is very personal. It’s about traveling on the road, meeting people, having life-changing experiences, and dealing with the real hardship of trying to make a living chasing the dream of playing music. Some songs are about specific states or specific road experiences that changed us on our journey. The other part of the album is more a macro look at the country as a whole. While we are searching for our personal “good land,” we also felt like the country as a whole is looking for its identity. What does it mean to be an American? What is the American dream? Are we on the right track? We’re not necessarily preaching messages in our music, but we are certainly asking questions.

4) I hate to add to the impatience of the music industry, especially since you guys are still rocking the last album and subsequent tour, but what’s next for the Cerny Brothers? What do you have planned for 2020?

Robert – We hope to continue hitting the road and fine-tuning our live show. Sometimes it’s hard to see your progress because it happens slowly over a long period of time. We’ve been trying to record albums and play live for almost 10 years at this point. But as 2019 comes to a close, we have to realize that most of the shows we play are extremely positive. We very rarely play without getting some reaction. That wasn’t always the case. We are also always writing, and we’re really excited about some of the new songs we have coming down the pipeline.

5) With a brother act, we have to end with something fun. What’s your best story about two brothers together for months on the road?
Scott – One time we were playing a festival in Colorado and had to leave right after we played so we could drive through the night for a gig the next day. I remember being completely exhausted driving through the cold night trying not to hit deer as we drove through the mountains. When it hit about 7 a.m., it started snowing pretty hard. It shortly turned into a complete whiteout blizzard. Everybody was so tired and so annoyed. I remember our manager Fallon (Neil) randomly started laughing. I was like “What could you possibly be laughing about?” And she said, “The gig today is outside.”

Turns out the gig was canceled, and we ended up getting a nicer hotel with a hot tub (nicer than what we were used to) and all going to a brewery together. Was a great night.

Watch “Laugh at the Devil” by The Cerny Brothers here: