Dead Horses

Brady Street is the long overdue follow-up to the band’s arresting 2018 album, My Mother The Moon, which landed on multiple high-profile playlists — the single “Turntable” has accrued more than 38 millions Spotify streams — and found the pair profiled in Billboard, Noisey, and independent global news publication Democracy Now, as well as being a Rolling Stone “Artist You Should Know.” While they recorded in Nashville for their last album, working with producer Ken Coomer (Wilco, Uncle Tupelo), the pair decided to stick to their rural Wisconsin roots for the Brady Street sessions, choosing to record at Honeytone Studios in Neenah, Wisconsin on Lake Winnebego.

The band’s spare instrumentation — upright bass, guitar and drums — provide a perfect backdrop for Vos’ raw, unadorned vocals as she shared songs inspired by her experiences with judgement, homelessness, poverty and coming to terms with her own sexuality.

Vos’ resilient “You Are Who You Need to Be” is a ballad meant to empower those who don’t fit into society’s gender and sexuality norms. It’s an anthem of acceptance and compassion for anyone who feels “other.”

“’You Are Who You Need to Be’ is a song meant to empower,” Vos says. “It’s inspired by a friend of mine who has a difficult relationship with his mother because she does not accept him for being gay. I once went to a mutual friend’s wedding, and he took his mom as his date. They seemed like they had such a strong connection that I was blown away by the fact that their relationship was consistently being poisoned by her unwillingness to accept him for who he is. Being queer myself, I know this feeling all too well, and I understand how complicated it can be. Because on one hand, fuck ‘em. But on the other, it’s your mom. It’s your sister. It’s your entire extended family, perhaps. It’s the fear that now that Roe V. Wade is being overturned, gay marriage is next. Some of us started that the fight for equal rights was won, as if the gay pride flag just become a symbol of trendiness. I’m here to say that the fight is not won. I’m here to say than when I see a gay pride flag I breathe a sigh .”